Harold in Absence

I. The Hospital Video, 1963

Like my grandson, the boy in the bed is young and slender. My grandson lives to move. He survives with love from his Mama and Papa. The boy in the bed survives without.

Harold, the boy in bed, is young and slender, but he can scarcely move. His wrist is fastened to the bed rail, and his legs are blanketed. His Mama and Papa are absent, but the doctor and nurse are near. Looking at Harold, the nurse silently spoons food into Harold’s mouth. Looking at the spoon, Harold opens and closes his mouth. The doctor is not looking at Harold. He is looking at the camera – and through the camera, to us. He is telling us about Harold’s bandaged ear, which Harold has gouged. The doctor tells about the need for restraint, the need for feeding, and the hospital’s need for more resources.

II. Dixon State School, Cottage A-10, 1967

Lumps at the sides of his head,
tufts of hair on the top,
eyes swollen shut,
his untied body is hunched
motionless and stuporous,
parked on his bench.
I thought him blind, deaf, an old man,
but he just matched my 17 years.
The doctor’s drugs stopped
the gouging without filling
the absence.

In the midst of A-10,
that miasma of filth and brutality,
Mrs. McCausland approached him
like her own child.
“Harold, Sweet Boy, Come with me.”
Her caressing voice breathed a circle
around them like the shelter
of an angel’s wing.
Harold raised his eyes to her,
his face relaxed into a near smile.
Returning it she gently touched his arm,
and he leaned closer – almost a snuggle –
and raised his stiff body.
Clutching her hand,
he shuffled along
wherever she might lead.

Kathy French is a retired academic, the mother of sons, and a member of Multnomah Monthly Meeting in Portland, Oregon (NPYM). This poem is from a book that she is writing about Dixon State School in Dixon, Illinois