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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.

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