Poetry gods

I’ve been making these “snow Globes” the past couple of days and pat always asks why my crafty projects take so damn long because they do – I’m always straining my eyes toward the end of them, fingers burnt off from hot glue, sliced from scissors, numb. I dunno, I shrug covered in bits of paper, glitter, kosher salt; my back bent like a trunk sustaining years of wind or in my case hours of hovering over mason jars.
Christmas was wonderful, but I don’t really feel like writing about it – I’m too tired and now stuck at work while our family is out galavanting through the desert and I feel hopelessly cooped up and bored.
My heart has felt like it’s going to explode all day, a sore throbbing under my ribs, a beat up leather mitt and I thought coming here to release the valve would help a little, but so far what’s troubling me has no way of getting out. I’ve been trying for months to get it out and I just can’t.
There’s no hope of cutting out the things we’ve done, the people we’ve met, our experiences, griefs, triumphs. Right now I’m just trying to mold the aches into places more soothing than the surface of my skin. I’m trying to bury them a little deeper in shoe boxes and bring them out only when I can remember them fondly. It’s probably impossible – at least right now it feels impossible, but I’m hoping to adapt at some point, mold them to fit my body.

We went to church on Christmas. I’m not religious and there are times in past years I ducked out of the whole affair all together, but I decided to go to be with family knowing that as much as that old white man tried, he wouldn’t fill me with his holy spirit. I didn’t burst into flames, so that’s a plus, but I did make a joke about some cherub being the elf on the shelf and it’s possible I was docked a few points by that remark. Half the time I was staring at all the stained glass and trying not to fall asleep, the echoes of human voices has a serious lull. And the other half I felt like the priest was talking to children who were about 7 years old looking out at the crowd of mostly adults telling us to lose ourselves to God and explaining how to be a better person and how to befriend and pray for your enemies like he prayed for the Sandy Hook shooter. I thought, well I did too, how could you not pray for that poor kid and all those poor kids – are there really people out there who let their hate cloak everything they see? I suppose there are, but I guess I don’t see how church changes that intrinsic instinct in people. One hour every week of trying to be a better person is like trying to run a marathon without training.
I kept thinking how much poetry is my “religion.” Writing and reading poetry helps me understand the world in a way organized religion never has. It’s honest. It’s truth. It’s life. Everything you need to know about life is in poetry. Every question you have, you can find in poetry. It’s a connection between individuals and the land and other people. Sitting in front of an old white man has never inspired me. Spirituality is something we find in ourselves by ourselves because of our experiences with other people.
Poetry is my god.
AMEN.

(this is half-assed post. Forgive me, but I’m trying to get the hell out of work for a manicure my first manicure EVER and I don’t want to write anymore about old white men.)