Married, no kids, but I tend to surround myself with animals: we live with 2 bernese mt. dogs, an elderly cat, and 8 chickens. Soon, we'll also invite in a couple of jacob's lambs and maybe a goat or two. I write for a living--instructional design and software manuals mainly--though I've also written a young adult sci-fi novel, a collection of poems, and am midway through a screenplay. Just as life isn't all serious, I like to keep a sense of humor in my life and writings. Usually, it's when I'm playing that I learn the most.
I guess my models for poetry include Chang Tzu, Rumi, Rilke, and Barry Spacks. Rilke is the most serious, but I'll forgive him (as if he asked) as he wrote one of the most touching and beautiful poems I've ever read: Orpheus and Eurydice. (I love Stephen Mitchell's translation.) Of the others, I love their playfulness and gentle wisdom. Rumi's wonderful expanse of love gives me great hope: when I read him, its as if there are two swallows flying around my heart in that fun, acrobatic, and skilled way they have. Barry's works are hard to find but worth the effort.
Stay Home. Read. ---------------- This calm and endless rain, sky-sifted, drizzles on my head like God's soft hand, gently stroking my troubled soul. "There, there," it seems to say. "Stay home, read. Stay home. Read. Work tomorrow, for today is blessed." How could I disobey?
Even if we lose our shoes ------------------------- We've got to let go soon of concerns of the outside world of entrenched beliefs of stagnant life-constricting thoughts of words that limit meaning and let the swell of the psyche flow in to lift us out of the muck that holds us fast. Even if we lose our shoes, we must free ourselves. Even if we lose our shoes.
The hot bath of enlightenment ----------------------------- Dip toe, foot, then knee. Too hot! Pull out; put back in. Accustomed? Now immerse.
At the river of love -------------------- I kneel and submit on the pebbled bank a shriven, penitant pilgrim Pour calming ablutions on my hate-hardened head Mime the sign of the universal on my brow Dunk me once Dunk me twice Dunk me thrice Then bless me with a kiss
Washing
-for Cheri
------------
Sorting whites and reds, darks and lights,
I scoop some soap and shove in blues.
You walk down the hall to get a drink and,
like a trout rising in a shaded stream,
I glimpsed a foreign past where we two,
in rough-spun clothes of an unnamed tribe
stood midstream, midsummer, in a stony brook,
sun glittering your hair and face
as we beat clothes against these rocks.
I don't recall our sex, our looks, our skin;
only this much:
That we were friends from long ago.
To think that you and I repeat these lives-
You a crone, lover, boy, wife, all
And I, your complement (or twin!)-
Until we get this human stuff down;
Until we grow compassion like hair.
email: homer@homerchristensen.com WWW: homerchristensen.com