Your Life As I Knew It
By Anna Cosslett
The highs and lows of family life, as a mother pieces together the effects and possible causes of her son's fairly severe autism.
Thursday, 9 April 2020
A Poem for Everyone at this difficult time
This was one of the first images I posted about life with Huw. It is also a poem about walking alone with my son and the mixture of emotions such walks can bring. Now that everyone is taking such walks every day, I thought I'd give you the text of the poem included in this image:
The Still Small Voice
You might need that – it said
But I’ve finished sneezing for today
Don’t wear that– it said
But I won’t be swimming, anyway,
Not before we go to the rocks and see
The widening circles on
The smooth, still, deep water.
Every day, calm or rough
Since the illness started,
He can never get enough
Of the lake, its boats and birds
and its stones buried in the bouldered shore
And I have watched or read or
Loved the sun or scenes of children
Teaching their parents how to play again
But today I cried.
And you needed that handkerchief
After all
And you must wear waterproof mascara
For when the tears fall.
I am intending to offer a limited number of prints of this image unframed and on good quality paper. If you would like to buy one, please register an interest by sending a message to me on the Unbound website. Cost will depend on how many copies I make of it. The image itself will be A4 in size presented on A3 paper.
Note: I used the word 'illness' when I originally wrote the poem (some 20 years ago) so that readers could more readily identify with it - now it seems prescient.
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