July 4, 2018 Haiku

A 26th Anniversary poem
by Jen Hunt

Fireworks and fireflies
Beacons, big and small applaud
Our hard won union

Judah, Here I’ll Stand

By Jen Hunt
After reading the chapter on Tamar in Vindicating the Vixens, along with Martin Luther, A Spiritual Biography.

Judah
How he took me for a ride
Judah of the Lion’s pride
Took me from my father’s yard
Wed me, cruel and hard
To his first, who died as evil men go
But there did not end my woe

Gave me to his brother next
Used, from every blessing kept
Seed spilled, hope spilled
He died too
Still my sorrows were not through

Blamed for deaths I didn’t cause
Kept from common decency’s laws
Shelved, sent homeward, long alone
Hollow-promised the youngest one
Left to wither
Left to rot
Left, without a child or plot

Years until I understood
This is a promise
He’ll never make good

Now I hear his wife has died
How poetically fate’s applied
Off to sheer sheep with the guys
If I know him well, those shifty eyes

See him there
Spying the telltale veil
Smelling the spices
Starting to fail
Widow’s gown off,
Here I’ll stand
Till propositioned
By the weak-willed man.
Doesn’t even see it’s me
How buzzed or callous can he be?
He screwed me thrice
I’ll screw him o’re
Though nothing could ever settle the score

Now I have him, table’s turned
Stole my life, now mine returns
As pledge I clasp
His staff, ring, cord,
Not taking chances anymore
Goes as stealth'ly as he came
Yet in my hands the Lion’s mane

Widow’s garb back
Just wait and see
What this John’ll do to me

When they find
I’m expecting
Just as expected
The two-faced father
Of my two sons
Orders my doom
Why his one word can kill us three
Seems patriarchy’s worst to me
One question proves his contribution to my womb:
Tell me, whose
This ring and staff?

Judah, humbled
Owns his part
Calls me righteous
Gains fresh start
Fesses up to his pretense,
And is restored to Joseph one scene hence

True, I’m spared and double-blessed
One child for each husband laid to rest--
But my reputation’s been
Side-swept

Perez broke out; Zerah next
Even I broke out,
--If not my sex--

Judah, he got out quite nicely
No one thinks of his sin twice, he’s
Touted as the tribe of God
While I remain a maligned broad
Time my name got redressed
Tamar, the Righteous, says it best

That you don’t see my true reflection
Is the mess we women are still pressed in

If Judah’s commendation be not enough
Nor Ruth and Boaz’s blessing
This then is my highest prize:
Here I stand
Within His Word
And within His tree.
What have been gi'en for Judah’s shaft?
Christ’s genealogy
The final laugh

Tamar, the Righteous

By Jen Hunt, after reading Vindicating the Vixens

Tamar
The Prostitute

How Judah-like
I’ve death-knelled

You, wed you
To your shame

Tamar, perhaps as all women,
Through guile
And childbirth
Saved

Some knowledge damns like
Staff and cord

That Judah calls you
Right, not he, hurts

My head and pet
Philosophies

Same, your seat
In God’s genealogy

The measure used
Measures against, so

Tamar, much-crossed
Tamar, much-blessed

I lay your sins
And mine--
To rest

Mary, Mary, Quite Contrary

By Jen Hunt
After reading the chapter on Mary Magdalen from "Vindicating the Vixens"

Mary, Mary, quite contrary
To what I had been told
You were not a minor player
On the outskirts of God's fold

Nor were you the foot-anointer
Or the sister of one raised
A sleazy woman of the night
Or the mom of John and James
(Though these and countless others
Have at one time shared your name)

Mary, Mary burdened
By an inner devilish throng
Perhaps you knew depression
Or sickness deep and long

Once seven demons lighter
Your soul could not forget--
Fully freed and fortuned
Firmly in the Healer's debt

Mary, Mary Patron
From Magdalen, rich fishing center
Well-off enough to fund Christ
And the Twelve together

Mary, Mary Student
Front-row hearer of Christ’s words
How singularly even
Were his seminary floors!

You who followed after Jesus
I’ll sit a spell by you to learn
What it is to lighten, to give freely
And to yearn

Mary, Mary Witness
As Jesus breathed his last
Heard him cry Eloi!
Earth shaking, stood fast

Mary, Mary Worshipper
Brought spices rare and sweet
Dialogued with angels
Clasped God’s resurrected feet

Mary, Mary Sent One
First to see the risen Lord
Called to tell the others
Yet offhandedly ignored

How often blurred, your visage
Since Pope Gregory's time
One mis-stroke after another
Muddying the lines

You who once thought Christ a gardener
Surely will forgive
The poor portrait some have painted
Of the life you really lived

Apostle to the apostles
Too often pigeonholed
Mary, Mary Magdalen
My new mentor from of old

Family

Haiku written after visiting the art museum on our Kansas City, MO vacation, April, 2016

Four different winds
Drawing us heavenward
Sand and soothe with time

Carmel

by Jen Hunt, after staying at the Watts Carmel home

A mostly guilt-free bacchanal
Of art, for sale and free-to-all
Ne’er too cold; ne’er too hot
Scenic views grace every spot
Gentle winds float sea air smells
Soft rains yield to sunny spells
Soon every nerve is smoothed and sauna-d
By enchanting food and fauna
What, if anything, could it lack?
Nothing--save a poet’s shack
Enamored with this bungalow
Like April fools we come and go

Not yet a grandmother

by Jen Hunt

To my imagined future grandson, Theophilus
I thank God you are not a rhinoceros