AUTISM: A POEM

. . . . .XXIV. Morning Walk in Late Autumn

. . . . . 1

Under thin light of late autumn sun,
. . . . . brisk winds drag a mixture of brittle

leaves—red, orange, brown, gold—
. . . . . along cold ground around our house

and toss them above the hardened
. . . . . earth in the backyard flower garden,

where we had turned the black soil
. . . . . during spring seeding. Its pine fence

has been weathered gray by decades
. . . . . of days like today, wood splintering

even before the harsh frost in winter,
. . . . . provides another way to measure time.


. . . . . 2

Awakened by a swift shift of winds
. . . . . this morning, we saw first snowflakes

settling among those empty limbs
. . . . . in a row of willows across the road,

filed beside a shallow pond already
. . . . . frozen over even though the winter

season has not yet begun. When we
. . . . . walk toward thicker woods beyond,

chains of footprints remain to track
. . . . . our path. With each word you speak,

your tiny clouds of breath disappear
. . . . . nearly as quickly as they’d appeared.