I vacillate between wanting to post poems in their entirety and wanting to post excerpts. I don’t want to dilute their full impact by not allowing you, the reader, to complete the whole journey, but I want to bring you closer to reading each poem in the context of the entire collection.

Yet, all the poetry in Gravity stands alone and Aileen Murphy’s poignant, “Proverbs 13:24″, is no exception. The view that we can snap our children out of their ‘bad behavior’, discipline them in such a way so they can ‘play well with others’ is, unfortunately, one of the most common misunderstandings about the spectrum.

Proverbs 13:24

He who spares the rod hates his son. . . .

She called to say we needed to talk
knocked on the front door with one fist
held her Bible in the other
Your three-year-old needs spanking
she smiled
he pushes too much
smaller children in his space
does not play well with others
I gaped, fascinated
having lived in the south for not quite a year

I held the door open with my body
waiting while she gathered her things
She and her husband spanked their children
she urged, finger still on a Bible verse
the book closed around it
as she hurried her purse strap over her shoulder

Upstairs, I spied from his doorway
as he lay, face on the floor
brio train cars rolling past his eyes
a tune coming from his chest

One year earlier a priest had said the same
nodding confidently, like I would accept his words
based on his profession, his position
as so many others do, as my mother had
when she spanked my child once
when we were out at a movie

I knew nothing
just to not add pain to his curious world
just that he was happy alone
in his sunlit, toy-strewn room
singing alphabet songs
without others pressing into
and popping the bubble of light
around him

From Aileen:

I have read the whole collection of Gravity Pulls You In, and I have never felt like so many people on the planet understand me, as I do now.  I feel like there are so many strengths and insights and ways of seeing that our children have given us, all of us.  The voices of mothers and fathers in here help me to breathe easier.  The stories of the children, young and older tell me that we are all going to be okay.  One good friend of our family who has a son about eight years older than our son, and who also has Asperger’s told us once that what it comes down to is that it is all just parenting.  We become the parents we need to become, just as any people do.

I wrote this poem probably eight or more years after the event itself, but everything was so solid in my mind about that insane visit by another parent from a play group we had been involved with, that it was not hard to remember details.  I did see this same woman a few years after she came to my house with her Bible, and she sort of apologized, although it took the form of blaming another parent in the group who had put her up to it.

The amazing thing is that when she called to ask if she could come over, I had had the worst week ever with my son.  While visiting another person’s house, he had seen a baby standing up in a crib and had pushed the baby backwards, which was the end for me.  That day, I took him out into the grass and told him to sit there while I got my things together, and not to move.  The baby was okay, but I drove home crying and telling myself that until I figured out what was wrong, I was not going to ever bring him back to another play group or any gathering where there were other children.  When the Bible mother called me, I told her “If this is about my son and his difficulties with other children, don’t worry.  We are not coming back.”  And she assured me “No, no, it isn’t that–it’s just fine–I just wanted to talk to you!”  So, stupidly, I invited her to come over, and the poem tells the rest.

My son these days is a high school senior who will be going to college next year.  He is very independent, and has been all throughout high school, in getting all his homework done, enjoying movies, keeping his room neat, and taking care of our cats, who he loves.  Our cats also love him.

Years ago, when he was young, maybe a little older than the time of the poem, my parents were coming to visit us, and while they were driving, my mother said something she had said before–that she hoped that her grandson would let her hug him.  She and my husband’s mother had both noticed that they could not really get warm, happy hugs from him, from the very start.  My father told her one of the wisest and most perceptive things we have ever heard about our son.  He said to my mother:  ”Your problem is that you come in the door and lunge for him.  You can’t do that with this child.  He is like a cat.  You don’t lunge for a cat.  You have to come in, take your coat off, sit down, have a drink, have some conversation, and then the cat comes to find you.  He might come close and then closer, and pretty soon, he will be in your lap.  You have to be patient.  Our grandson is like a cat.”  And that has turned out to be very true:  Quiet, independent, smart, thoughtful, and able to function just fine with minimal human interaction!

(If you have never seen this book, it is great: All Cats Have Asperger’s Syndrome by Kathy Hoopmann.  She also has a book called All Dogs Have ADHD.)

When my son was first diagnosed, I mostly cried in the car, whenever I was driving, usually taking him to school, driving to work, or shopping.  Not like out loud sobbing, just quietly, so I could still talk to him and hear what he was saying.  A song on one of the tapes we always had in the car was Kermit the Frog singing “It’s Not Easy Being Green” which would tear me to pieces. On the surface, you think it is sad to be green, to be different from everyone else–but as it turns out, he ends up being happy to be just what he is: “I am green and it’ll do fine, it’s beautiful. And I think it’s what I want to be.” And this is how we feel about our green boy.  He is fine, he is beautiful, and he is what he wants to be.

Thanks Kyra and Vicki for letting me be a part of this book.

Aileen Murphy is the author of a chapbook, There Will Be Cats (Finishing Line Press), and the Assistant Director of Creative Writing at Virginia Tech, where she has taught writing since 1994. She is also the Co-Director of the Southwest Virginia Writing Project. She lives with her husband, Paul, and her two children in Blacksburg, Virginia.