Complex Blessings

it is a hard miracle and a diamond miracle
and a frightening miracle
and an empty and endless miracle
it is a miracle with teeth and beyond blue

u can’t hold it in your hands because it’s too big
u can’t hold it in your heart because it’s too small
like everything else human,
autism is everything and nothing
and something exactly at once

like everything else human,
autism has shape and pulse –
but it’s not to be especially celebrated
or merely tolerated

it’s just the end of a to be verb –
meaning autism is whatever it is
it hurts, harms and heals all at once.

somewhere, on the other side of the sea –
another mother is weeping
because her boy is strapped in a helmet
and covered with bruises

somewhere, on the other end of the world –
a mother is celebrating
because a 12-year-old just took her first steps
and then blew her nose in a tissue 

somewhere on or over an ocean with no name
a mother is reveling in the deep delights
her endlessly intelligent child brings to her each day

these are all the same face,
the face of autism in its many expressions –

when you love someone with autism –
it’s always a complex blessing
it’s in the eyes of all who love,
or fail to love them.

what you celebrate another parent grieves
what the other parent grieves looks like a drizzle of diamonds to you

that is one hell of a miracle

because autism is just as miraculous as the rest of the world –
no more no less –
given that the world was born into infinity from a big bang
birthing lithium and carbon and the entirety of the universe
in a second’s single stutter –