monday blues

today is monday...thus, the title.

i lost my job friday. this is particularly disturbing because it was unwarranted and my employer was a friend. lesson No. 1...never work for friends. the lines between employer and employee and "friender" (i'm sure that's not a word) and "friendee" become blurred. so...today...i am unemployed, a newlywed of 6 months, a mother of three, and forty-one years old with no clear definition of the latter half of my life. My 20 year old son is lost...he and his girlfriend and their infant daughter may be moving in with me soon...the scripture about "reaping and sowing" comes to mind. My daughters are twelve and thirteen and will soon die if they do not receive a pink "razr" phone. i left the consonants out in the word "razor" because apparently, it is cool.

WHAT'S TRUE...I love being married to my man. My relationship with God is shallow (I'm working on that), and I want a drastic haircut. Also, I love spinach, canned or fresh. I desire to be a painter. I'm angry...Here is an angry poem from days gone past.

Tuesday Night

So I'm reading Roethke and I'm wondering
how he did it - how he could turn weeding
a garden into a grieving, death celebration.
And I'm thinking that I'll never be able
to do that, at least not with nature,
and then you drag into the room,
that familiar scowl on your face.
You've just read a poem that I wrote and you
want to know why it doesn't rhyme. You say it's definitely not poetry.
Definitely.
"A dreamer," you say, "Not well read," you say.
"It's all bullshit anyway, and how much does it pay?"
"Keep trying," you say. "Try reading James Michener,
and hey, did you know Jimmy Buffet writes poems, too?"
You're waiting for an answer but I
don't give one away.
You turn and leave, dragging your bad right leg
behind you, and I know
that you will pause...
before you slam the door.

Meanwhile, back at the farm...

So two months later, hopped up on pain pills from a recent tooth extraction, I finally decided to post something. It's midnight and the moon is full...what more inspiration do I need? I've been inspired from reading other blogger's poems, thoughts and angsts...it's working. Here is something old. Hopefully, the wheels are turning and something new will emerge.

Lessons from Sunday School

"Remember, God is love."
This is what our sunday school teacher
told us at the end of every lesson.
She never realized these words
were lost to us. The words we kept
were wrath, jealousy and judgment.
They stayed with us until adulthood,
growing like weeds, choking love.
And who could blame us when our young ears
were told about monsters in the old testament?
What were we to think when Abraham
stood up in our dreams, knife raised, prepared
to kill his only son in the name of love?
(Isaac means laughter. God is big on symbolism.)
In the hands of god-fearing parents, we used
our prayers like garlic around our necks.
Years of therapy later, we've thrown out the old,
brought in the new, the testament those teachers
chose not to talk about for whatever reasons.
Now we get the symbolism, we see the foreshadowing
of another son, but I'm no closer to understanding
that kind of fatherly love.