One of the first submissions Vicki and I received was from Barbara Crooker. She sent three poems and they were all beautiful. When the decision was made to include only one poem per contributor, we had to choose. It was a tough call but “The Stone” won out.

THE STONE

was heavy.
The family carried it
with them, all day.
Not one
could bear
its weight, alone.
Yet how they loved it.
No other stone had
its denseness,
its particular way
of bending the light.
They could not take
the stone
out in public,
had to keep it home,
let it sing songs
in its own strange language,
syllables of schist and shale.
When the mother’s back ached,
the father took the stone
for a while, then passed it
from sister to sister.
The stone
became a part of them,
a bit of granite
in the spine,
a shard of calcite
in the heart.
Sometimes
its weight
pressed them
thin, transparent
as wildflowers
left in the dictionary.

Sometimes it was
lighter
than air.
The stone
did not talk.
But it shone.

From Barbara:

One of the things I hoped to convey in this poem is how we’re all in it together, our entire family, which now consists of two married daughters, their spouses, and grandson.  Having our son David, now 26, in our lives has made us all more compassionate.  Our little grandson Dan was singled out by his pre-school teacher for having done more for the Inclusion kids in his class than all their therapists combined.  No one told him to do this; he just instinctively knew that his Uncle David is different and doesn’t talk much. But they share common interests:  Sesame Street, Star Wars, the Beatles. Dan refuses to give up on getting Dave to talk.  And he often succeeds.

In the poem, I have the myth of Sisyphus in mind, but since you’ve given me this soapbox, I want to make it clear that Dave is not the burden; rather, it’s his future, the one we have to provide for after we’re gone that weighs on me, especially since nothing is currently being funded—no group homes, no job coaches, no sheltered workshops, no transportation. . . .

Sorry to be grim.  But I think everyone needs to know that during the eight years of the Bush administration, ALL social services dollars for new clients went to fund the war, and so far, we haven’t gotten them back, so no one new coming into the system is getting federally funded.  Medicaid is the funding stream for group homes; all these “taxpayer revolt” groups out there whose mantra is “no new taxes” really mean “no new services” for your kids and mine.

Here’s another poem that was taken, but not used:

GRATING PARMESAN

A winter evening,
sky, the color of cobalt,
the night coming down like the lid on a pot.
On the stove, the ghosts of summer simmer:
tomatoes, garlic, basil, oregano.
Steam from the kettle rises,
wreathes the windows.
You come running when I reach for the grater,
“Help me?” you ask, reversing the pronouns,
part of your mind’s disordered scramble.
Together, we hold the rind of the cheese,
scrape our knuckles on the metal teeth.
A fresh pungency enters the room.
You put your fingers in the fallen crumbs:
“Snow,” you proudly exclaim, and look at me.
Three years old, nearly mute,
but the master of metaphor.
Most of the time, we speak without words.

Outside, the icy stones in the sky
glitter in their random order.
It’s a night so cold, the very air freezes flesh,
a knife in the lungs, wind rushing
over the coil of the planet
straight from Siberia,
a high howl from the wolves of the steppes.
As we grate and grate, the drift rises higher.
When the family gathers together,
puts pasta in their bowls,
ladles on the simmered sauce,
you will bless each one
with a wave of your spoon:
“Snowflakes falling
all around.”
You’re the weatherman
of the kitchen table.
And, light as feathers,
the parmesan sprinkles down,
its newly fallen snow
gracing each plate.

This poem was inspired by my son with his intuitive grasp of metaphoric language. I also wanted to show another form of Inclusion; like other sons of Italian-American immigrants, he’s grating cheese with his mother. There’s a layer of irony here because when David was around 8, I discovered the gluten and casein-free diet. He made huge gains and we’ve never looked back. So my meatballs no longer have Parmesan in them, nor slices of stale bread soaked in water, then squeezed and shredded.

When I entered the world of autism as a writer, I had no idea how it would influence me. I’d been an adjunct for years, and would get evaluations that said, “Ms. Crooker could teach anyone anything.” But now I had a child I couldn’t teach a single thing to; so he taught me just how to be.

I’m pleased to report that David does have a life, thanks in part to the mom-from-hell (that would be me) who pushed and pushed for our school district to embrace Inclusion (which they did, when he was in third grade). Without any real early childhood education (there was little or no educational component to his program behind closed doors in segregated special ed), he entered the regular education world (always with an Inclusion aide), and graduated with a “real” Pennsylvania high school diploma (as opposed to the “attendance” one most special ed kids receive). He went to the prom, had a graduation party, etc.

He has two jobs, one at a department store in shipping and receiving, one in a sheltered workshop. He sings in the church choir and continues with karate in a regular adult class. His social life is comprised of family, period. But this doesn’t seem to bother him; one of his pluses is that he doesn’t realize his parents aren’t “cool.” His household jobs are to mow the lawn and shovel snow and he does these without being asked. Except for his inexplicable taste for Lawrence Welk re-runs (every Saturday night), he’s pleasant to be around, and his off-beat humor adds a certain ‘je ne sais quois’ to our lives.

Barbara Crooker’s book, Radiance, won the 2005 Word Press First Book Award and was a finalist for the 2006 Paterson Poetry Prize. Her second book, Line Dance (Word Press, 2008), won the 2009 Paterson Prize for Literary Excellence. Her third book, More, will be published later this year by C & R Press. Her poems appear in a variety of literary journals and many anthologies, including Good Poems for Hard Times (Garrison Keillor, editor)(Viking Penguin). She has won a number of awards, including the WB Yeats Society of NY Prize (Grace Schulman, judge), the Thomas Merton Poetry of the Sacred Prize (Stanley Kunitz, judge), and the Rosebud Ekphrastic Poetry Award. She is the mother of a twenty-six-year-old son with autism.