One of my favorite poems is Kyrie by Tomas Transtromer. The beginning line, "Sometimes my life opened its eyes in the dark," became a spin-off line for my own poem Adjusting the Darkness from my book The Last Time We Were Children. I also titled one of my own "life" poems Kyrie and followed Transtromer's form. This entire poem, translated by Robin Fulton, stood out starkly to me as a college student. That first line spoke to my mood at the time, and the shortness of the poem (eight lines) succeeds at the art of speaking universal truth in brevity. (Something I have not quite learned, but continue trying.) But, what makes this poem one of my top ten is the way it moves me at different times of my life. I had no idea when I read this poem at 21, that at the age of 30 it would help me relate to another dark time of my life, when my eyes snapped wide open to a new challenge. In the wake of learning one of my sons has autism, I understood the "feeling as if crowds drew through streets/in blindness and anxiety on the way towards a miracle,/while I invisibly remain standing." Anyone who has a child with autism will tell you there are too many of us, yet we feel awfully alone. Oh for the day, when "the doors of darkness open" completely! Yet, all is not bleak, and there is the lure of Transtromer again. In many of his poems, there is a melancholy tone along with some unreachable, tangible hope. I wish I knew what moved Transtromer to write this poem. But, I am grateful to him for writing it and what it means to me.