The Future Wasn't What It Was

for Mikki on her birthday

Photo by Colynary Media on Unsplash

Biology is mystery
And, though you were born male 
In 1949,
The Yankees’ season going well,
As expected, Yogi Berra
Boisterously batting in runs,

The future wasn’t what it was
And ninety percent of
The game was half mental.
Alongside your love of baseball’s
Masculine fastballs, swings, and hits,
Your inner anima emerged,

The subtler yin to all that yang,
Like a graceful fielder,
A receptive catcher ...
You felt the beauty of the game,
And the feminine principle
Was the fork in the road you saw.

You can see a lot by watching
And that is what you did,
Keeping your secret yin 
Hidden under a veil of yang
Until déjà vu all over
Again set you free to be you.

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Note: The form of this poem is what I call a Fourfold Oracular-Syllabic Hexastich (or FOSH) and is based on a reading of the I Ching conducted this morning for Mikki’s birthday. (Mikki, formerly Mike, is my sibling-in-law and longtime spouse to my sister; a father, grandfather, uncle, and now a trans woman.) The reading randomly pointed to Hexagram 2 (The Receptive) — auspiciously consisting of all feminine yin lines, with lines 2 and 3 changing. In the stanzaic structure of the poem, this gets translated to an 8-6-6-8-8-8 syllable count in each hexastich (six-line stanza). [Side note: It just occurred to me that Yogi Berra’s number was 8 — more synchronicity …]

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Yogi-isms alluded to in the poem:

“The future ain't what it used to be.”

“Ninety percent of the game is half mental.” (This is sometimes rendered as "Baseball is 90 percent mental. The other half is physical.")

When giving directions to Joe Garagiola to his New Jersey home, which was accessible by two routes: "When you come to a fork in the road, take it."

“You can observe a lot by watching.”

“It's déjà vu all over again.” Berra explained that this originated when he witnessed Mickey Mantle and Roger Maris repeatedly hitting back-to-back home runs in the Yankees' seasons in the early 1960s.

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