I am in awe of the poet’s ability to capture both a specific moment in time and the gestalt of an entire experience. The poems in Gravity do that for me. Anjie Kokan’s poem, “17 Sounds of a Boy with Autism featured at Your Daily Poem does that for me.
As does the gem, “Watching My Son Watch Sleeping Beauty.” There is a purity in the child’s delight and in the surrender of a mother’s love:
Watching My Son Watch Sleeping Beauty
“Red mouth,” he says to the mirror after he draws a jagged outline ‘round his small and serious lips with his sister’s cherry-scented marker. He’s in love with a cartooned blonde who dances barefoot to “Once Upon a Dream.”
“Red mouth, red mouth,” he shows me as he subtly licks the animated smile on his TV. Next he puts his two index fingers together to make the sign for “feet.” He must rewind back to the close-up feet scene a couple of more times before he will join the next step of this dance.
He laughs among the animated woods without borders, where jackrabbits hop in old boots, and the wild gold-eyed owl, centered in a cloak, sways with the winged beat of whistling blue birds. All the animals are happy, and the girl is happy, too, as grass tickles her leaping feet and her lovely red mouth sings of things that are seldom what they seem.
My boy’s small feet are barefoot as well, with their own dancing song, and a red, red mouth that holds kisses just for me. Tell me, tell me, how can I not dance, too?
From Anjie:
There is no doubt about it, autism, like any other disability, has its ups and downs. I try to capture little moments in my writing to remind me of life’s blessings and keep me on the up.
“Watching My Son Watch Sleeping Beauty” highlights my son’s innocence and delight, for he has crushes on all the Disney princesses and has had an obsession with feet since infancy. Therefore, the clip of Sleeping Beauty dancing barefoot in the forest was sure four-star hit with him. What I had hoped to capture was a celebration both of my son being his true, authentic self and of a mom who decides to dance along.
Anjie Kokan, formerly Greene-Martin, loves facilitating writing workshops for all ages and abilities for community groups and schools. She is an award-winning writer who publishes poetry and prose. Her work has appeared or is up-coming in publications such as The Upper Room, Toward the Light, BEST of Mamazine, Mezzo Cammin and YourDailyPoem.com. Anjie enjoys a colorful life filled with laughter and drama with her husband and two children in Wisconsin where she teaches ESL through Gateway Technical College. She is a member of the Wisconsin Fellowship of Poets and a founding member of Grace River Poets.
