Muse in the Morning

A Transition through Poetry XVI

Art Link Weed Is There a Place for Me? Is there a place for me Among the beings of light? Or must I grow like a fungus Alone in the musty dark? Am I like a wildflower Providing beauty in the wilderness? Or am I like a weed That needs to be removed from a lawn? Can I find someone Who will love me as I am? Or am I to be doomed To a life of loneliness? Is there a place for me Where I can thrive and provide beauty? Or am I forever condemned To the dark ugliness of society’s cellar? –Robyn Elaine Serven –July, 1993

Muse in the Morning

A Transition through Poetry XV

Art Link Eyes Exuviation Like sloughing off old skin leaving chunks along a life path flaying myself alive stashing a lump here and a sliver there One must tear down before one rebuilds sometimes embracing portions of the past bits left behind sometimes not always hoping that joy might arise from burying pain and trying to forget where it was left –Robyn Elaine Serven –January 24, 2006

Muse in the Morning

A Transition through Poetry XIV

Art Link Incompletion Unfinished Woman Some assembly required. Includes non-factory installed equipment. Read instructions completely before beginning. Mistakes are not correctable. Insert tab A into slot B. Batteries are not included. –Robyn Elaine Serven –June, 1993

Muse in the Morning

A Transition through Poetry XIII

Art Link In Pairs New Tricks riffs on a theme Discontinuity Total refusal to be who I was balked at the concept finally stood up New environment Learn to fit in or face rejection Is it ever enough? There are always bigots “Learning to fly but I ain’t got wings” And coming down can smash your face into the ground It’s like trying to pair up old socks only much more serious What portion is me and what part pretense? Non-vital essence What only exists for the sake of appearance for convenience for comfort, safety? Being dead is safe eventually Learning is so hard Learning how to exist painfully harder There is no blueprint no textbook to consult nor guide on this trail I am a teacher I must lead myself –Robyn Serven –January 25, 2006

I was minding my own business, cooling my heels in Friday Philosophy, hoping for a little more than the usually suspects to show up.  From the activity at 6pm eastern on a Friday, one might suspect that people had actual lives or something.

Anyhoo, jessical dropped by at 8:20 by the time stamp, which is probably something like 8:45 in real time.  So not only had most of the likely readers left by then, thereby missing what jessica left, but most of the unlikely readers no doubt missed it as well.  It’s not like there has been a big Huzzah about it or anything.

Well, except for maybe jessica and me and a batch of other transfolk.

jessica dropped of a link to the text of a decision by the US District Court for the District of Columbia in the case of Schroer v. the Library of Congress.

NL dropped by and left a link to an ACLU announcement.

There was the obligatory article in the Washington Post, from their man on the District Court beat, which appears on B10 the day after the ruling of that court.

I’ve spent a couple of days searching for someone to write the story and explain how this is important to transsexual people, mostly because when news like this comes from me or someone like me, it is too easy to downplay the significance.

Whatever.  Doesn’t seem like this news has a chance of surfacing amidst the roiling seas of financial profligacy.

So, as short and sweet as I can make it [turns out, that didn’t happen – ed], from my own biased point of view, here’s the deal.

It’s been a tough week with so much financial disaster going on.  At least I suppose it is disaster for some.  Having lived five dozen years, I sort of accept this sort of thing as the periodic consequences of “business as usual.”

The cliche that comes to mind is, “The more things change, the more things stay the same.”  Which is, of course, not really true, except in a truthiness sort of way.  When things change, there is change.  The question is how we, as a society, respond to that change.  Mostly what I have observed is “kicking and screaming.”  There has certainly not been a calm and rational acceptance of change in our society, any more than most people accept substantive change in their own personal view of the world.

But sometimes we have to accept monumental change, or at least the possibility of it, in order to progress as a species.  That there have generally been some negative side-effects to accompany such change is regrettable.  I tend to thing that those negatives often result from those who cannot adjust to the change in a rational, pro-Earth (and all the beings that inhabit this planet) manner.  But the world has never really seemed interested in what I think, it seems, so maybe that’s not all that worthy a subject to pursue.

But I wonder.  I have always wondered.  There is plenty to wonder about.  “What if?”  Isn’t that what separates us from those who are not of our species?  Aren’t we just the beings whom have never been able to stop asking, “What if?”

Muse in the Morning

A Transition through Poetry XII

Art Link Bits and Bytes E-spacing There is no sound but the clickety-clack of fingers on the keyboard There are no sights but the electronically formed letters on the screen But there are people in my computer Riding the crest of the technological future And I have joined them We have stripped ourselves down to the thoughts we express Mind meeting mind with no distractions The carefully chosen phrase can be undone By the carelessly tossed word A misplaced comma may cost a friendship We become our vocabulary and our usage of it Our emotions are expressed only through punctuation Yet we bare our souls to each other And form relationships deeper than those in the real world Because we must always trust each other Finland, Australia, South Africa and Canada Maine, Virginia, New Hampshire and Kansas Baltimore, Cleveland, San Francisco and Boston I have trod on your virtual streets today And visited with some of your most caring inhabitants We embrace each other thought to thought And love each other’s wisdom We share our joys and pain And support each other through our sorrows and triumphs This is life in e-space –Robyn Elaine Serven –June, 1993

Muse in the Morning

A Transition through Poetry XI

Art Link Tangles and Ripples Friends There came a time when folks had to choose whether they knew me or not Most of them fled unable to cope or unwilling to try The few who remained faced questioning of their own motives for standing by me New friends were made some would deem questionable outsiders the dregs to some who recognized me as one of their own newly arrived or maybe just freshly met –Robyn Elaine Serven –January 19, 2006

Muse in the Morning

A Transition through Poetry X

Art Link Isolation Loneliness and Isolation The mind–yearning, seeking, questing, emerging–female. The body–betraying the mind–male. Can one express what it feels like to be transsexual? Before I was man and was treated like man. After I will be woman. Now I am both/neither. Neither generally wins, excluded from both. Is it too difficult for others to comprehend Or is it too difficult for me to explain? Is there anyone who will accept me as I am Or will I only be accepted/rejected For who I was/will be? Loneliness and isolation nip at the edges of my being. Certainty becomes expectation. Expectation becomes hope. Hopes become dreams. The dreams dissipate into nothingness. Another friend is gone. New friends are made. Life changes but why must the bridge be so tenuous? Loneliness and isolation blur my consciousness. Why must others always bring up the past Which has become so foreign to me? The events are there but the feelings are gone. How do I describe the deeper feelings that have replaced them? Emotions long submerged boil to the surface And erupt full-blown into the mind But there is no one present with whom to share them. Loneliness and isolation crowd around my soul. How do I explain the feeling of hormones Coursing through my body, Changing it to fit the mind? How do I deal with the sexuality, the sensuality Exploding in every nerve ending? When there is nobody with whom to explore these sensations, Time slows considerably. How does one measure the growth of a breast? With a watch, a sundial, a calendar, or with a life? Loneliness and isolation seek to smother my existence –Robyn Elaine Serven –November, 1992

Muse in the Morning

A Transition through Poetry IX

Art Link Passing through Grey The Letter This is just a note to say goodbye and warn you and them…and me of the drastic change in our life paths lying on the other side of the passage of night to introduce the person you will meet tomorrow when I return as someone else a plea to you to help nurture this fragile seed as it germinates and a heads up so you can view or maybe cause the lighting of the fuse that will initiate the explosion of our separate and joint realities a call to witness the mass reactions designed to crush the life out of me –Robyn Elaine Serven –September 29, 2006

Muse in the Morning

A Transition through Poetry VIII

Art Link Painful Separation Love Love is hard to give… and harder still to take Life is hard to live… unless it’s lived for Love’s sake. –Robyn Elaine Serven –July, 1992