April 2nd marks World Autism Awareness Day. As someone who has had close personal experience of autism, I'm delighted that the day celebrates the unique talents of people who live on the autistic spectrum as well as highlighting the difficulties they so often face in societies that too often misunderstand or misinterpret. Many hugely creative people are now thought to have been on the autistic spectrum - including Emily Dickinson, W. B. Yeats and James Joyce - and I've had the privilege of meeting several "unknowns" who use their highly personal, often quirky, insights into life to great advantage for others as well as themselves. However, this is in no way to downplay the struggles so many individuals and their families face - and I hold them in enormous regard for the ways in which they fight to surmount those hurdles.
An Autistic Child
Fluent at six, you read
as if by instinct,
concentrating for hours,
cocooned within
your world of words.
"A gifted child"
they said.
But to spread your wings,
to interact, you must read
between the lines,
decode the syntax
of expression,
interpret posture,
gesture, space,
leaf through the pages
of the human face.
Not yours the gift that makes
for easy friendship, give and take,
acceptance by the crowd.
Such literacy a mystery to you -
a lesson to be learned
piecemeal over years.
Easier by far
the comfort of your books.
(Copyright Gill Garrett, 2013)
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