If wishes were wine, I’d have a hangover.

Field Notes In/On Transition.

If wishes were wine, I’d have a hangover.

I’m not really sure what that means, but I’m going with that as my catchy title.

I had another big long yadda-yadda after the poem, but it's still too much a yadda-yadda, so I'm going to keep it a bit shorter and work on the rest of it all week, until I figure out what it is I'm saying there.

This poem I wrote the other day...  from scratch even. Usually I rewrite these things endlessly before showing anyone... but this is a draft (a few days of rewriting as opposed to weeks, months, years) I think is reasonably ready for consumption. It may or may not resemblance to anything I've done in the past. It's very much unpolished, so I have no distance to say so.

It also has little to do with my transition, other than the story of how the inspiration for it came about. The other day after talking with my mom, writing the last blog entry, and I feel making a few real, but tentative steps in the direction of being a functioning member of my family/friend circle... I was sitting with an ice cold beer and a good book, in the early mid evening in my beautiful backyard which is so abundantly alive with birds, cats insects, raccoons, and so on.... 

I was watching what I call “the Wall of Flowers” (pictured left, behind me)  and a hummingbird floated in as they do, sometimes. This little bird hummed and leapt off flower petals to other flowers for a solid five minutes. I sat in awe. smiling, not moving myself, as much as I wanted to run and grab my camera, I instead stayed put and experienced the cornucopia of sweets that the humming bird was enjoying.

After the little bird had it’s fill and zipped off to another backyard, I thought “Now, how can i call myself a poet if I can’t get a poem out of that”. For a few days it was on my mind constantly, until I had no choice but to sit down and pour it out. Which is pretty much how the magic happens for me. 

It happened for me pretty much constantly in my 20’s, early 30’s, but as I aged and had less and less melodrama (and real drama sometimes) in my life, I also retreated from having much of a life, except when I made a point of doing so. Until, well all I had left was transition. Which is a much slower story arc than I had ever imagined, despite all appearances to the contrary. 

So here it is... my first poem written since wholly since I started my transition. This is early days for any poem of mine, and I can almost guarantee it will be edited further, but here it is....

the humming bird passes through

the wall of flowers

       again

       and

       again

draining each 

                 blue blossom

ignoring all the pink 

                             and the red

flowers 

their petals outstretched 

                      looking for love

they will get from a fat drunk 

                                 bumble bee later on

when I have gone back 

in

side

but for now

I’m quiet

       drinking ice cold beer

with 

invisible sips of my own

                         while the bird hums 

from blue petal to blue petal

often 

spring-boarding off the

             downward aiming

blue petals

with a Nadia Comaneci kind of

                         Grace

that I haven’t seen in my

                          backyard since 

the time the local cats

                 had that ballet recital

that ended in screeching tears 

                         and bloody tufts 

of fur that wafted throughout 

the garden

       

little alien spores of death

                                 

... all their kitty ears 

bitten torn

sculpted 

into cracked 

         teacups

                        

or that time sitting on my stoop, 

                       cupping my face 

away from the bitter 

shards of the November wind

                         I spied in the corner of

the doorway

       a spider spinning his

webs around a fly who

                            had gotten in over

his head

      

       As the spider threw silk

it seemed as though he

                   were boxing with the

fly, throwing jabs, 

       lefts rights

       combinations, 

       and in the end

                    a devastating 

silken haymaker that made

the fly’s tiny head

                        disappear before

my naked

       eye. 

© 2012 Josie Boyce.