AUTISM by Edward Byrne: November 2011

AUTISM: A POEM

This blog has been created as an open experiment of poetry composition, perhaps a glimpse at an emerging manuscript as it matures. This working manuscript should not be considered as complete or published. Instead, this should be viewed as merely an early stage in the process of creation.

I have placed below some of the pages from an isolated venture in one of my typescript loose-leaf folders. The contents here represent portions of an ongoing personal project with a particularly narrow focus intended to eventually develop toward a book-length poetry sequence with the tentative working title of Autism.

The poem will grow as new sections are added. The individual posts are designed so that they may be viewed as independent items; however, I have consciously carried themes, images, and similar language through the extended sequence with the hope that connectivity and continuity will be preserved among numerous sections of the long poem.

Readers are asked to regard this piece as a work in progress, a partial or rough draft rather than a finished product (even if some selected segments previously may have appeared in print), and I request everyone realize various edits, emendations, or expansion may be made to the posts at any time in the future. Moreover, at some point the entire sequence will be removed to undergo a complete revision.

Therefore, I urge visitors to become followers of the blog by clicking the link in the sidebar, as well as to follow on Twitter for updates. Readers are also invited to browse my personal web site for additional information.

Indeed, a significant part of this experiment involves a certain amount of transparency that includes the possibility for readers to communicate responses and offer constructive suggestions, both of which I welcome through post comments or e-mail messages.

Also, I advise that the order of the numbered sections is not meant to be at all definitive since the long poem’s sequence will certainly be reorganized as the work in this temporary format starts to resemble a completed manuscript and begins to assume a more formal shape that might eventually be suitable for publication. In fact, I welcome interest from book publishers as well.

Thank you for taking the time to examine this trial stage, a test which I perceive as a preliminary process in the composition of a possible poetry manuscript. —Edward Byrne

Sunday, November 13, 2011

AUTISM: A POEM

. . . . . XXXVI. November Morning: Two Crows

. . . . . 1

We step across a narrow ditch of frozen
. . . . . runoff opening along this hillside still

filled with a thin film of overnight snow.
. . . . . The slim shape of its slit fades away,

disappearing into a split in that distant
. . . . . line of pines rising straight and stable

despite a persistent hint of northwest
. . . . . winds chilling the early morning air,

twisting through a covering of leafless
. . . . . trees. Slowly moving among some

fallen branches, Alex carries a camera
. . . . . slung by his side, awaits my advice

on where to aim and how to frame
. . . . . a photo to preserve the perfect image.

. . . . . 2

He pauses, listens to the caws of two
. . . . . crows floating in currents overhead—

the pair seen between trees a moment,
. . . . . then unseen—and he feels the cold,

knows that beyond the broken canopy
. . . . . of looming black limbs, somewhere

not far past this last ragged shore ridge
. . . . . edging Lake Michigan, winter will

soon arrive once more. Thrilled, yet
. . . . . wordless, Alex lifts his lens, tilting

at the crisscross pattern of treetops.
. . . . . He directs it toward that jagged gap

of sky showing above him like space
. . . . . meant for a misplaced puzzle piece.