Ambling Towards Ambulation

Bink was a late walker. She was late with everything, actually—except with being adorable and precious and deeply loved.

Here’s a poem about walking from my book Little Pockets of Glow. If you haven’t purchased a copy please check it out. This book would make a meaningful gift, too, for a teacher, a doctor, a therapist, a parent, or any poetry lover.

Walking

At twelve, thirteen,
fourteen months,
when most children

begin to walk,
or make a show
of pulling their soft wobbly bodies to stand,

you were content
to sit and rub
the carpet, watch
the fibers grow fuzz
beneath hands you didn’t seem to know belonged to you.

A plump child you were,
with flesh-ringed legs
and arms,
at least three chins.

As you grew
stronger, my arms
did, too, carrying you
room to room,
holding you
while you screamed
inconsolably

and turned away
from family and friends
who reached out
hoping for a smile, a cuddle.

You recoiled at some sights and sounds,
textures, certain
clothes,
and any kind of shoe.

We didn’t know about autism,
not yet,
but I quickly learned
what brought you comfort—
chirpy music, breastfeeding,
being driven in the car
for hours.

When you were at peace
I could be, too. I wonder
if you recall, as I do,
when you were sixteen, eighteen,
twenty months plopped on the grass,

making a study,
it seemed,
of the individual green blades,
your fat hands
brushing the tops of them

over and over,
your face a mix
of stern concentration
and happy fascination.

Sweet reprieve from the screaming,
this, and relief for my strong
but tired arms.

And still you grew,
rebuffing my attempts
to hold you up by the armpits,
sing walking songs,
show you videos of babies toddling happily
from toy to toy.

It was the not walking
that brought my questions
to doctors,
to Early Intervention,
to a parade
of specialists and therapies
I never dreamed would become our norm.

That time was a blur
in many ways, but I recall
your first,
tentative steps.

You were two
years two months,
finally ready
to trust your feet
against the hardness of the earth,

to step forward
into the blur
of delight and confusion
newness and noise

–Melinda Coppola