WHEN THEY TELL ME, by Grey Brown

FINISHING LINE PRESS
$14.00, paper


I met Grey Brown through her invitation to judge the poems submitted for the annual "They Wrote Us a Poem" contest, sponsored by Duke Hospital and directed by Grey. Reading these poems by people who'd suffered illness or endured family members' illnesses was an emotional experience for me. Since that time, Grey and I have remained in contact. In her latest book, she wrestles with the angel of her daughter's autism. She says, "It is my hope that this book will help families supporting children with learning differences. Thanks again to Laura Williams for her cover design and to Elizabeth Marin for sharing her art work." Grey will give a reading at Regulator on April 29th at 7:00 and will be on The State of Things with Frank Staccio on April 29th at noon.

Grey co-founded the literary arts program for HAND in 1986. She began offering the literary arts in a medical setting as a graduate student at New York University when she assisted poet Sharon Olds teaching creative writing at Goldwater Memorial Hospital.

Grey gives presentations locally and nationally on the role of the literary arts and on creating literary arts programming in health care settings. A visiting lecturer teaching creative writing in the Duke English department, she has also served as a writer-in-the-schools.

She is the author of Staying In, winner of the North Carolina Writers’ Network Harper Prints Poetry Contest. Her first full length collection, What It Takes, Turning Point Press, will be released in 2010.




When They Tell Me is Grey Brown's personal story of her daughter with autism, but it is my story too and the story of any parent who has a child with a disability. Through her wonderful descriptions of motherhood, worries, and diagnosis, she draws the reader into her world. You understand and share her feelings of fear and confusion. You celebrate her hopes and love for her child. These thoughtful and powerful words confirmed my own experiences and comforted me. For those who have not shared this particular journey, it will offer an incredible insight into a parent¢s overpowering love for their child and the challenging journey to acceptance.

--Ann Palmer, author of Realizing the College Dream with Autism or Asperger Syndrome; A Parent's Guide to Student Success and co-author of Parenting Across the Autism Spectrum;
Unexpected Lessons We Have Learned

Development

From six to twelve months
our daughter
does not gain an ounce.
In the lab I trap
her tiny wrists
as the phlebotomist
hunts the vein,
piercing my baby again and again.
Here, this photo,
the crook of her right arm
bound in gauze, startling bulge
in proportion to the rest of her.


At night I sit and wonder
what is this thing
thick and black beneath the crib,
sucking her life into darkness.
In home movies I come to see
how little she smiles,
sags in the highchair,
listing to one side.


Babies from our birthing class
pass their milestones
as she slowly falls behind.
I hate the playgroup
where I watch the rest sitting,
crawling, then standing
to toddle. I want to pull
them back down to the ground,
pin their limbs,
keep them here
beside her.





Early Intervention Play Group


Ironic this name
as she does so little play,
tends to stray
when children
come too close,
as though something
literally intervenes
between my daughter
and play
and group.


At twenty months,
she is the only one
who cannot walk
except for the boy
with cerebral palsy
who still creeps
across the floor,
calls her name,
too slow to catch her.
She crawls a steady orbit,
watching and avoiding
the others and their games.


She pauses, plinks
piano keys
before escaping
the attempted duet.
She sits alone,
waving her hands
before her face,
the music
of her small fingers
still ringing.





When They Tell Me

the psychologist,
the therapist,
the nurse practitioner,
and the intern,
we are crowded
in one office.
They inhale
what air is left,
the breath
I imagine
they collectively take
each time the diagnosis
is given.
Why do we say given
when so much is taken away?
I take my time to respond,
my eyes wandering to the art
of children framed
along the wall,
and I can not stop myself
from rising,
from deliberately
reading the labels
telling me these drawings
were done by autistic
children in Russia.
I am the only one
standing, the rest
still waiting. Suddenly I laugh,
and I am not sure
if I have laughed to myself
or aloud in front of them.
If I could just at this moment
lead them home to my room,
show my bedside table
piled with books overdue:
the woman who talks with gorillas,
the one who thinks in pictures,
the son who loves windows,
those who see smells,
the girl who paints prismatic paintings
If I could open my journal
point to the pages
where I have dared
to write the word.
I have known for so long,
I wonder if I have brought this on.



Nutcracker Surprise


At first it is circles she loves,
singing her one word praise
for hours in the back seat.
She graduates miraculously
and mysteriously
to fire hydrants.
We count them,
sort them,
I coax her fine motor skills
as we cut, glue and glitter
fire hydrants.
She learns colors
by the surprising variety
of fire hydrant shades,
red, orange, black and grey
even blue ones
sporting team colors
in this college town.
We have grown used to her passion,
to her voice shrill
as she spots number fifty,
understand how she longs
to live in the house
with its own hydrant
right there in the yard.
We think we will never be surprised
till the house lights dim
and midway through the first act,
Clara’s godfather holds up not a nutcracker,
but a fire hydrant,
and she bellows her praise
in an auditorium so silent,
so still, we hear
the rustle of hair-bows
as six hundred tiny heads
turn our way.


Play Ball

Kick-ball is a gamble,
so much to set you off:
glare of sun, noise,
the way you might take
being out too personally,
not to mention
that you have yet
to kick a ball.
I imagine you lost between bases,
or somehow catching a pass
just to run the wrong way.
So I watch in amazement
as you ask to pitch,
step to the mound,
squat, the kick ball
an egg
between skinny legs.
You send the ball straight for the plate,
without a bounce, nary a wobble,
lean back,
hands on your waist
as though you expected as much.


No one else here has any idea
how far you have come
but from here in the field
I spy the occupational therapist
molding your hands to the ball,
catch our physical therapist
adjusting your stance,
hear the speech pathologist
cheering from the stands.
I nod to our pediatrician, a calm,
but attentive referee,
the whole afternoon rolling out
perfectly conceived,
the sun and sky
brilliant visual cues
lighting you
there in the center
setting us all
into play.