Asperger's

You do not grow out of Asperger's when you are twelve.
You learn to live in society the best you can.
Your unconventional behaviour and  ambivalence,
Is not due to poor parenting.
No new fangled diet will cure you,
Though a healthy diet is always beneficial.
Time and space for solitude and special interests
Is a must for everyone's sanity.
You are not androgynous or unsexual,
Just tactile defensive, clumsy and super-sensitive.
You are also focused, passionate,
And most importantly honest.

The turning of the year.

Winter solstice is a memory,
Chickens resume their work after a short recess.
The firewood in the shed slowly diminishes,
And the goats are coming into their milk of Imbolc.
The washing hangs,
On every available hook or rail, before the fire,
And steamy eucalyptus is helping to clear our blocked sinuses.
Finances and impending tax returns are discussed,
As well as the excursions planned for the rest of the year.
Now at this midpoint,
No Yule cleansing fires here,
Yet we still take stock of what has passed thus far.
And look optimistically towards the birth of light,
And the rest of the year.

The music of words.

My poor, right dominant brain,

Often finds it hard to find the word.

I know the word I want to say,

I see its picture in my head, 

But sometimes it just will not come to my tongue.

So I swear instead.

Or that is my excuse anyway.

Yet when I hear music I can hear the words in it.

Like magic, new lyrics come to me.

I can write songs like that.

I hear musicality in a phrase.

It awakens the pictures in my head,

And I'm off,

Writing another song.

 Or another poem.

The respite of an embrace

When your bucket is full to overflowing,
And you must carefully traverse an uncertain path,
Unaware of the obstacles still to be overcome,
It is in the stability of a firm embrace,
That you find sufficient solace,
To keep moving forward.

Tonto

No friend of the Lone Ranger,

He may be as proud, but not so statuesque,

His forehead a mass of soft brown curls,

Tonto the Dexter bull is in the house yard.

No amount of coralling can get him back in his own paddock.

He snorts and paws the ground.

Despite his diminutive stature,

He is a block of muscle,

And not to be messed with.

I cannot speculate what is going on in his deep skull,

As he attacks a pile of gravel.

So we leave him to it,

Put Lucerne in an obvious place in his paddock,

And leave the gate open.

After a short excursion around the garden,

He leaves his calling card next to the Hill's Hoist,

(Yes ours is that old),

He casually saunters back into his paddock, 

To slowly munch on hay.

Aspie life in a post medication age.

Life for a modern child is anything but simple.
No time now for lying in the sun gazing up at clouds.
Or riding your bike around to a mate's house,
To see if they want to go swimming.
No billycarts,
Or cubbies in the bush on the vacant block next door.
No time or space,

For solitude.

For 'Aspie' kids those were the halcyon days.
Well....compared to now.
Then you were just the 'odd', 'brainy' kid who collected stuff,
And maybe talked in that weird voice.
You had the security of structure and certainty.
While you could be the plaything of the school bully.
So were other kids.

The bright blinking screens, ear piercing squeals of fluorescent lights,
And stomach churning, smelly whiteboard textas,
Were still to come.
The most distressing things then,
We're competing in the school sports carnival,
The smell of Perkins paste,
And the sound of a teacher's finger nail,
Inadvertently dragged across the blackboard.

People seemed to move slower.
Aspie kids did not have to resort,
To escaping into their cyber worlds.
They could always hide away with the Famous Five,
In an adventure story, behind the weather shed.

But now if our Aspie kids are to be out,
In this modern hurly, burly,
Being overloaded by the very things that provide them solace.
It seems that medication is their only ticket to acceptance.

The Simple Things

A sunny Winters day.

A gently ticklingly cool breeze.

A warm wooly jumper.

Soft dry ground.

A campfire.

Fresh mountain water.

Some happy pork sausages.

Bread, butter and tomato sauce.

Ham, cheese and baked beans,

And a jaffle iron.

Cast iron pan containing roasting chestnuts.

Kids, bikes, dogs and a treehouse.

All of these 'simple things',

Make a memorable day.

The exquisite suffering of doubt.

It had been two years of exquisite suffering,
Sometimes it was exquisite,
Like when he smiled at me.
Sometimes it was suffering,
When he mooned over a lost love,
(And shared every gory detail, with me!)

So I put my pain aside,
Deny its existence,
And get on with regular,
Life.
But then when hopes are again stirred,
It returns....
The longing.

But when to put aside the fear of rejection?
When is the time where your fragile heart can take the risk?
That small window between,
When the sublime anticipation of your deepest desires are realised,
And when your soul will not withstand the devastation knowing that they will never be.
This is the exquisite suffering of doubt.

Human Frailty

Each day new systems are created,
To control our lives.
To work or volunteer,
We need to maintain accreditation.
We must continue our professional development,
Assess risk,
And report, report, report.
Collect data on irrelevant minutiae,
That may not withstand statistical scrutiny.
We set up these monoliths of data,
To keep us safe.
But despite the protocols and the training,
The systems means nothing.
The human ego cannot stand the scrutiny.
It will not willingly reveal any fault or weakness,
Human beings lie or neglect to tell the truth.
All of these clever systems underestimate,
Human frailty.

Gratitude

Morris did not like the gift.
An expectation was not met.
His hopes were for something...
Different,
And better,
Than what he had received.
Disapointment was etched in the long lines of his face.
He could not look at his benefactor.
He was pressed.
He answered truthfully.
" It's just a stick."
So why is he chastised for not being thankful?
Gratitude cannot be demanded.
A gift ceases to be a gift,
If there is any expectation of gratitude.

Machismo

When they herd,
They butt up against each other,
In mock jest,
Each sizing the others up.
They stand tall, legs apart and arms across chests,
A male mountain range.
Then come the stories:
Humourous, often sexualised, laced with profanity,
And ninety percent true.
The level of exaggeration,
The measure of their insecurity.

The Salve

It is the paucity and precision,

Imagery and metaphor,

The musicality and lyricism,

Honesty and sentiment,

The mindful persistence,

Of well crafted, thought provoking words,

That make a poem,

A salve to the soul.

A True Friend

A true friend,
Doesn't need you, but delights in your company.
They are never jealous, they celebrate your successes.
They hurt when you hurt, and try their best to alleviate your pain.
Worry, but are content to know that you are happy.
They trust you to the extent that you are trustworthy.
Respect you to the extent that you deserve their respect.
They want you to be the best that you can be,
And are honest with you, even if the truth hurts.
A true friend will just think about you,
And feel a warm smile form inside their heart.

When you are too cold

When you are too cold,
You can't sleep and everything aches.
When you are too cold,
Your body and mind becomes indolent and goes on strike.
When you are too cold,
You want to eat stodgy carbohydrates and warm sugary drinks,
Like cake and hot chocolate.
When you are too cold,
Outside looks even colder and less inviting,
You think about moving to warmer climes.
When you are too cold,
Only laying in a deep bath,
With an endless supply of hot water,
Will cut it.

String

String,
It's a remarkable thing.
So useful,
And fun too.
I really can't explain,
My great desire,
To carry about my person,
Pieces of string.
I love the honesty of jute.
The security of paracord.
The comfort of wool,
Creativity of cotton.
I like to hold it in my hand.
Manipulate it,
And create useful objects.
The mathematical beauty,
Within the multitude of knots.
Knit, crochet and weave new fabric.
And when I have the time and space,
I also like to hitch, lash and knot,
Rope.

And then came George

Old cars come with cassette players.
Left near a bin at a coastal campsite,
Old cassettes.
Compilations recorded from the radio.
This was all news to me.

This is not one of my tapes I think to myself.
Man, he has got worse taste then I thought.
What a mix.

The day has been long and not gone well.
I feel that slow fill on the road to overwhelm,
Almost at my eyes.
I am tired and still have a long night drive.
Takeaway cappuccino from the cafe perks me at least awake.
I persist through the mediocre songs and sing along.
I turn down, the truly bad.
And then when the urge to just switch off is almost upon me,
I hear the opening instrumental,
And it's George...

"All I have to do is to,
Love you,
All I have to be is to,
Be happy.
All it's got to take is some,
Warmth to make it,
Blow away, blow away, blow away"

The Conundrum of Social Bonding

How to socially bond, with people you truly like,

But have so little in common with? 

Forget the ASD.

I do 'talk the talk'.

I mean 'practise reciprocity',

And I mostly control my urge to talk incessantly about....

Well things I'm interested in.

But...

Then where is the sincerity?

I do not live as my friends do.

I don't even have a telly, 

I write poetry and songs, 

And love string.

I sense the discomfort they feel. 

They see someone before them who is friendly,

But who does not play the game of inclusivity. 

I don't know anything about 'fit bits' or 'Game of Thrones', or 'Candy Crush'.

I cook mainly organic food from scratch.

I can see that they feel judged by me. 

As if my nonconformity is taking a moral,

Or worse 'pseudo intellectual' high ground.

It is very perplexing.

Survival of the Fittest

She was giving up,
Losing the will,
My sick little white goat.
She'd been drenched and given electrolytes,
But still she lay down.
I picked her up and stood her on her feet,
And brought her feed close.
She ate but was weak.
I returned each half hour to find her down again.
It was disheartening and I was running out of ideas.
Then I saw her curly paddock mate,
The one we kept with her for company.
And I watched my sick goat bullied.
I understood.
In this cruel, hard world,
The weak are ground down by the strong.
Better for my nanny to fight her battle on her own terms,
Free at least from persecution.
Curly goat removed,
She now at least stands.

Time to think

Grant me time to think.
When all those small burdens that sat,
Quietly on my shoulders,
Have flown like butterflies out into the expanse of the world.

Grant me a space in nature to sit.
Where there are no distractions,
Or any ugliness to impede my view of this beautiful world.

Grant me comfortable weather.
With no tempests or extremes of temperature,
That restrict my opportunity to be outside.
To rejoice in solidarity with all things in my environment.

Grant me the companionship of a friend,
Who can sit quietly with me in communion,
And share with me this perfect moment in this time and this place.

A Man's Touch

He's away so it is left to me,
The milking.
Some mornings I look out into the frost,
And am thankful,
That it is not I who must rise to milk the jersey.
But this cold frosty morning it is.

The gates and the feed bins are all frozen steel.
My fingers conduct the cold well.
Thankfully the water to wash the udders is warm.
As is she.
I rest my cool cheek on her warm belly.
Massage in the udder cream and do the preparatory squirts,
Before the bucket is placed beneath her.

I am in position.
Awkward, due to my lack of practice,
And commence.
I sense her discomfort.
Or does she sense my draining confidence.
Either way it does not go as well as I planned.
Once she flinches.
Have I hurt her?
Then I sense that she is holding back.
With my one meagre litre and her feed gone,
I give up.
Perhaps she prefers a masculine touch.

The Clearing Sale

They're usually deceased estates,
A person's life placed out on black plastic,
Neat rows of furniture and household goods,
Room by room, like with like.
Picked apart like carrion.

Then the contents of farm sheds
And detritus from distant paddocks is bought together.
The new, the old and the in need of repair.
The farmers open trunks, lift bonnets and scratch their heads.

At ten o clock the bidding commences.
There is a jocular attitude amongst those competing for bargains.
The auctioneer maintains a familial banter.
He puts a shiny gloss on the items, that only he can see.

I came for an old wool table.
Too small for a 'real' shearing shed.
But as I have only a handful of fleeces and my shed is small.
It was perfect.

The table is rickety, rugged and homemade.
The slats are young wattles.
And I love the honesty of its construction,
Born of necessity in a simpler time.
A covering of lanolin it wears like a badge of honour.

The mental image of this tool,
Being used in my shearing shed,
Is a practical, romantic ideal,
Too short lived.
I could not outbid the fashionable lady from the city,
With the desire for a quaint pot plant holder.

 

My Bath - My Office

Despite also containing our homes only toilet,
The bathroom does not make such a bad office.
It is relatively private,
And the warm water and relaxed attitude to attire is a definite plus.
Being able to recline while tapping away on an iPad,
Or making necessary business phone calls is superior,
To any ergonomic office chair.
My bath easily holds two,
So there is room for my secretary.
When the water gets cooler,
I can just let a little out of the plug- hole,
And top it up with lovely hot water.
This is only disadvantageous when you are speaking on the phone.
I sometimes wonder at the thoughts of,
A business contact on the other end,
When they hear the echoing hollowness of this chamber,
Or the splash when I drop the soap.

Reality

Inescapable,
These truths.
My students,
With six or seven years life experience,
Discuss their choice,
If they could be granted one super power.
Amid the Ninjas, shape changers and flying fairies,
A sudden seriousness pervades the discussion.
And with this harbinger,
Comes a coldness that is palpable.
"I want to never get sick or die."
The momentary silence,
Is quickly filled.
"I am going to be a Ninja that can never die"
"Yes and I'm a shape changer that never dies as well."

Late night Jam Making

I would rather be curled up in bed,
With a good book,
And a 'hottie'.
Instead I am waiting.
Waiting, waiting, waiting,
For melon,
To become jam.
I'm ever tempted to reach for that cold plate.
The harbinger of the magic word:
'Setting point.'
But the mass of melon, lemon juice and sugar,
"Gurgles and bubbles and slurps and plops",
Boiling away,
Hour on hour.
Oh for that tiny spoonful,
To not continue to slide down the cold plate.
"Set you bugger!
Just get on and set will you."

The jars have been tenderly washed and sterilized in the oven.
They wait more patiently than I,
On the wooden chopping board.
Lined in military ranks.
"Oh come on set!
Pleassssse."

This poem shall just have to go on,
As long as it takes.

The melon was a gift.
I hadn't seen a jam melon,
Since I was a child living in warmer climes.
I grew nostalgic,
When an old timer who lives a few hundred metres lower than us.
Had heaps.
So many he couldn't give them away,
(except one to overzealous me.)
After all,
What else can you do with a basically un-sweet melon.
Only make jam or pie.
So jam it is.
Or hopefully soon will be.

  

Homo-sapien (gilwellius)

We are a strange breed,
Homo-sapien (gilwellius)
Common name:
The Scout Leader.
Our habitat is the great outdoors,
In the bush,
On the snowy slopes,
Abseiling off a cliff,
Hiking up a mountain.
Or at gatherings,
Where strange rituals are performed:
saluting,
Left handed, hand-shakes,
And the B R A V O!
We are also to be seen congregating,
Around campfires.
We each have our own special uniforms,
And Multi-badged blankets.
We like to accessorize these items,
With our own identifying personal embellishments.
We are only distinguished from our young;
The Joeys, Cubs, Scouts, Venturers and
Rovers,
By our relative size and colour of our plumage.
We are a rare breed.
But well worth examining,
On an anthropological level.

Blind, Deaf, Geriatric Dog

If we had not been watching out for wildlife,
Roads thick with roos and wombats,
We might not have seen her white coat against the black,
Or caught her eyeshine in the headlights.
We did a 'Uie' and turned around,
Just to check.

If we had not picked up the cold fluffy circle of dog,
Sitting in the middle of the country road
She would have been an icicle by morning.
At nine o'clock it was minus three degrees.
We wrapped her in a woolen blanket
She snuggled down into the foot-well,
And didn't make a sound.

If we had not let her sleep the night,
In a wicker basket in our room.
We may not have woken,
To the multitude of small puddles on the carpet. 
She ate her food,
And  we carried her out onto the frosty grass.
She didn't respond to our voices,
And walked in small circles.

If we hadn't watched her bump around our bedroom,
Tripping over slippers, tipping the basket and getting stuck under the cot,
We would not have realized that she was both blind and deaf.
We made an appointment with the vet,
In case she had a head injury.

If it had not been such a small community,
And that the ladies like to keep up with the 'goss', via facebook.
She may not have so quickly,
Found her way home.
And we may not of discovered that,
The fluffy white puppy,
Was in fact a blind, deaf, geriatric dog.


 
  

Sleeping Cold

Two nights I have been sleeping cold.
Well,
One night really.
The other I didn't,
Sleep that is.
I was too cold,
To sleep.
Minus ten sleeping bag,
Thermarest on stretcher,
Tent on tarp,
Everything sealed up,
Wearing thermals,
Trackies,
Socks,
Three layers of shirt,
Plus a polar-fleece jumper,
Woolen beanie.
Second night,
Even resorted to a hot brick from the campfire,
Wrapped in newspaper.
Still cold.
All the bits not near the brick.
Until eventually the brick too,
Cooled.


.

Ten to Two

We are back to 'that' time of year.
When you wake and rise in the dark,
And six o'clock closing,
Is also in the dark.
Frost means;
A slippery back step,
No more tomatoes,
Feeding out,
And Winter diesel in the car,
(so don't refuel on the coast).
A hot water bottle and chilblains,
Are your nightly companions.
It's imperative to keep the fire going,
ALL night,
You listen for the kids coughs and snuffles,
And have eucalyptus oil ready for the vaporizer.
It is 'that' time,
When your house has damp mouldering clothes hanging from:
The old wooden cot you have suspended above the slow combustion stove.
The dual clothes horses tethered in prime loitering spot in front of the fire.
Sheets adding an extra dimension to the curtains, sharing the ends of the rods.
Sometimes even the back of a chair is employed to drape a damp towel.
So why does your cosy home resemble
A Chinese laundry?
Simple...
Washing only dries between the hours of ten and two.

Wombats

"Boonk, Boonk!"
Is the sound of a wombat,
Going under my car.
In the clear frosty evenings,
You must be especially on guard.
Last night the moon was full.

First it was a fleet footed fox,
That crossed my path;
Fleet footed enough.
I slow to a crawl knowing,
The plantation will come up on my left.

And on cue the king of the macropods bounds out.
The kangaroo slips on the icy surface,
Rises, hops into the streaming light of my headlights,
It comes again, and slips again.
But I have seen it in plenty of time.
I stop, it clears the fence,
And lives to see another frosty night.

Resuming my slow journey,
I curse the carnage of the 'plantation zone.'
I pass mouldering carcass after carcass.
Nearing home I am calmer,
But.....
I see it, yet there is no avoiding the collision.

"Boonk, Boonk!"

Opportunist

The table is easily accessed,
If a chair is nearby.
All the delectable appetizers carefully arranged,
Each on its own plate.
The aromas tease and tempt,
Seductively stinging the nostrils with an aroma,
That tantalises the palate,
The clear fluid of anticipation,
Flows into the mouth.
Hesitation.
She knows it is forbidden,
And the consequences,
If she is discovered.
Yet she will descend to her base instincts.
And make that illicit climb.
Chihuahuas are just like that. 

It Snowed

Went to bed with anticipation.
Woke to the eerie silence,
That means the outside sounds,
Are softly muted by white powdery snow.

No traffic on the road,
And no morning chorus of birdsong.
It is a reverent time.
The paddocks are yet to have their pure surface,
Pockmarked by animals' pads, hooves and claws.
My yard wears a clean crisp sheet.

In bed I snuggle down,
In the knowledge that my route to work,
Will be impassable.
Let the children sleep in.
There will be time enough for their,
Excited, cold, saturating play.