A Mere Flutter by D’ete Blackshire, Listener Poet

Origin Story

We met during a quiet moment after a busy morning with patients. A second-year resident, she would become chief resident in three months. She shared she was often asked to step into leadership roles but didn't actively seek them out. “It feels different when you’re not making the choice,” she reflected. We paused for a moment of silence at one point. Afterward, she admitted feeling uneasy and a quickening need to speak. “Do you know what a flutter in utero is,” she asked. “I feel a flutter in my neck when it’s silent.” However, she admitted to appreciating and recognizing the intention behind it.

Residency was challenging, and there were times when it felt chaotic. She found solace at home in a self-care sanctuary adorned with pillows and blankets she called the “pleasure corner” and spoke of how her family was drawn to its serenity, but “they know it’s off-limits,” she smiled. When discussing the poem, she said she wanted it to be an honest look into residency life and her journey through it. “I want to reflect on it in the future, see my growth, and feel proud of myself.”

D’ete Blackshire, Listener Poet
Stories from Residents and Fellows for the KNN, Vol. 1
Spring 2024

A Mere Flutter

By D’ete Blackshire, Listener Poet

before i was “I”
before i had voice
i was a mere flutter
in the silent womb
a movement of sound
a language
sonic
when flesh finished forming
and a body shaped
i emerged from the canal
wailing

they say
i arrived fluent
in leadership

destiny feels different
when your will is behind it

i say
i was just being me
and didn't have a choice

i envision the day
when i feel
like the driver in my bones
but for now
my “I” is a giver who cares

whose words are balanced

if i have a native tongue
its grammar is trust

and it speaks me into corners of self-love and sacred rest on those tired days when im clothed in burnout & second guesses

held by the pleasure
of meeting my needs
i give attention to pause

cushion my limbs in plush blankets
ground my feet on cool wood floors
exhale my chaos to
inhale the care i
aspire to offer

so my fingers skimming over a subtle ridge on a pillow
is a moment about weaving
instead of borders

a moment about well-being belonging to no one
but a privilege
of being US
intertwined
interdependent

if the sounds of my threads
must be colored
let them say they hear the coming of a Wayshower since it’s my truth that leads me

and it’s a healthy truth
rich in cause
connection
grace and grit

and someday
i will say
to the flutter
in the silent womb
that propeller to the frontline

I am a healer
no lands are more worthy
of devotion

More Poems & Stories

Housewarming

Interspersed with the joys and worries of being a gramma, she recounted her own grandparents – challenges and opportunities of caring for them, grief of losing them, gratitude for being loved by them, and the everyday experiences of now living in their home.

Language of Diagnosis

What is pain without a diagnosis? This is what occupied this patient before she even received her breast cancer diagnosis about a year ago.

Gratitude

She told me that she picked her battles more and was trying to be less of a people pleaser.

Growth Phase

He ended up talking about his son, who is now his daughter. Another part of his experience of continual growth and soul-opening.

Dinner

Her values and perspective on life had changed as she considered ways to spend more time with her husband.

American Sonnet for Father Day and the Wisdom Tree

“When I see an old dude who’s optimistic, living his life, I always stop to talk to him to try to find out what he has done.”

enough

This nurse was considering leaving a position where she spent many years due to issues she experienced and witnessed at her hospital.

Variant

Many of the people he worked with had to develop a new identity in the context of their caregiving responsibilities. “It’s as if they need to become a new variant of themselves.”

In the River You May Find Yourself

“We’re taught to enter a room with a specific goal... with assumptions... with a hypothesis about what may be going on with the patient.”

The Shift

She believes that most of those who have connected with ACS began with a personal connection, but then, according to her, “you evolve, and you shift.”

Walk With Me

With her background in counseling and psychology, she works to bring people together and support patients.

Legacy of Hope

Although at times she becomes discouraged about the inequalities in the world, she is determined to do her part by making sure everyone has access to quality healthcare.

Living in the Magic

This person radiated gratitude and hope. She shared that she discovered she was expecting a son just before receiving a lung cancer diagnosis at the age of 31.

The House Medicine Built

She had an epiphany as a child — that love could heal the world. Now, as a seasoned physician, there’s still a part of her that believes in the power of love, but not with the same idealism she once held.

Why Neurologists Write

He talked about recently speaking with a patient who experiences migraines: she is seeking the truth, he is seeking the truth to find a way to work with her, wanting to give more than a diagnosis and prognosis.

I Am Stuck on a Wheel That Keeps Turning

To her, the surgical world has felt like “a wheel that keeps spinning,” a seemingly endless pursuit towards an undefinable goal.

List

While she kept an open mind throughout medical school, the field of OB/GYN ticked off all the boxes for her.

No Words Exist (Why They’re Afraid of Us)

“I was at a birth recently and thought: This is why they are so afraid of us. They can’t control this” She sat on her couch with a mug of coffee. She is a queer, femme, mother of two who has worked in reproductive health for over two decades.

Where Do the Children Play?

“I always took strength from the way little kids would handle it.”

We Shall Know Her Name

“The historic traumas of African-American women — all African-Americans — lead us to not be the first people at the doctors, nor the first to get surgery.”

One Human Body

“Sometimes I feel so helpless,” said this resident, reflecting on all of the challenges faced by the young patients and their families whom she served. Over the last several days, she has become increasingly overwhelmed by events in the news and has questioned her ability to make a difference in the world.

Stories with My Father

“It’s hard to watch the decline and sometimes hard to visit but it weighs on me not to,” she said. Her father had always been an elaborate storyteller and an alive, vibrant man with a big voice.

We Matter, Guys

The Good Listening Project was honored to once again take part in the annual KNN conference in Minneapolis this year. Jenny closed the session by writing this harvest poem that captured the voices and sentiments shared.

In The Middle Way

After a history of crippling endometriosis, this woman had an arduous, ongoing struggle with her healthcare community for the right to have a hysterectomy. She was finally granted approval at the age of 29. “It had been like pulling teeth, but finally I felt free,” she told me.

'O ka mele

Her childhood was infused with Hawaiian-Polynesian music and dance, taught to her father by his mother. Today, her life’s work is to connect the unbelievable discoveries of molecularly focused pre-clinical research directly to the patient experience of treatment.

On the darkest days

She is a single mother born to a single mother and had to grow up fast. She is juggling a sticky work situation, her own anxiety and depression, and being away from home and her kids.

This Healing Place

I was invited to create a group poem for forty participants at the Arts in Healing luncheon, hosted by the Inova Health Foundation in partnership with the board.

What You Will Call Me

What does it mean for people living with Sickle Cell Disease to be seen, heard, and understood? For this person, it meant finding – and using – her voice to advocate for herself and for others.