Thoughts in the Dark

By Susan Loucks Christensen

The scope of this book means there is something for everyoneall ages, all persuasions. With sensitivity and brashness, with humour and pathos, with irony and descriptiveness, and with awe and trepidation, Susan Christensen engages your mind and soul, your emotions and your sense of humour.
She covers, in her 165 poems, such topics such as the environment, tourist attractions, politicsfrom First Nations to the stock market and the plight of womenas well as relationships, old age and the future society must face up to. Philosophy of life and the seeking spirit filter through all the subject matter dealt with through her gift for the poetic word.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Dec 15, 2014
• ISBN: 9781496943668

Susan Loucks Christensen

Susan Loucks Christensen has always been a writer—usually inside her head with only small, but well received, forays into print prior to this publication. Writing has usually taken the form of letters, diaries and autobiographical short stories. Life in the form of family and the need to earn always got in the way—until she became so immersed in teaching poetry to Secondary School adolescents. It grew on her gradually, this compulsion to put her innermost introspections, yearnings and concerns into poetry. No subject was too petty or too painful to escape her keyboard. As semi-retirement brought fewer responsibilities to her busy life, the body of work began to grow substantially. Hence, the decision to publish her inner world. She feels it is her legacy. Anyone who has ever given birth, either of the body or mind, will understand what a trial and labour it is when the gestation period is over and the new entity is freed from the host. That sums up Susan Christensen’s publication of her poetic works. It is one more milestone in a journey of lifelong learning. The short stories are fretting in the background, awaiting their turn.

Book preview

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AuthorHouse™

1663 Liberty Drive

Bloomington, IN 47403

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Phone: [phone]

© 2014 Susan Christensen. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse 02/06/2015

ISBN: 978-1-4969-4367-5 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4969-4366-8 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2014920205

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

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Acknowledgements

First class kudos go to my daughter, Daphne Christensen Riegert, who lent her acute mind to the critiquing of poems and to editing for clarity of expression. This was an essential service for writers are often too involved with their art to see themselves as others see them. Besides, the process led to many a discussion about life and its perspectives. A wonderful growth of the mother-daughter bond evolved during this process.

Profound thanks for his generous spirit go to Henk Scholten, in the Cowichan Valley, BC. He has allowed me to root through his personal and creative photo library to find just the right illustrations for my poetry. To do this for a virtual stranger was amazing to me. Such a generous soul! Individual acknowledgements of his photo contributions are as follows: p.01 (lily pads); p.03 (mallard duck); p.12 (elk in meadow); p.81 (rainbow in forest); p.108 (iris Mandela); p.110 (spiral newel post); p.112 (fairy in grassy field); p. 178(butterfly on lavender); p.187 (multi-coloured leaves); p.196 (mossy trunk).

My gratitude goes to Daphne Christensen for all the graphics as well as the Unicorn painting (1996) on page 87. I would also like to thank the artist Karen Reiss of Salt Spring Is., BC. for permission to publish the photo of her sculpting on the Woman’s Perspective title page. An exuberant angel—what could be better!

The bulk of the photographs are from my personal photo files and from those of my daughter, Daphne. Recognizable faces are of family, past and present. Artifacts shown are personally owned but not of traceable origin.

I offer thanks as well to my eye surgeon, Karen L. Hoar MD, FRCSC and to the wonderful donor of my corneal tissue. Without their contributions to my life, I would never have been able to complete this work—let alone start it. Thank you. Other thanks and appreciation go to my husband, Robert Ingarfield, who provided me the mental and creative space in our lives that I needed to tackle this book. He accepted that Work is Fun and Fun is Work.

I wish I could acknowledge everyone and everything that has influenced the creation of this book. As New Age teachers have taught us: I am sorry. Please forgive me. I love you. Thank you.

Susan Christensen

Contents

Acknowledgements

PROLOGUE

Thoughts, Oblivious of their Destination

I Shape-Shifting Nature & Man Making his Mark

Guardians of the North

M.I.A.

Mission Aborted

Barking Dogs of the Sky

On the Menu

Upright Driftwood

The Poetry of Trees Gone By

Cathedral Grove

A Place for Deer

Turning from my Window

Long Beach

Desert Ship

After Guatemala

Ask Cousteau, He Knows

Standing Stones of Stonehenge

Persian Time Capsule

Olive Tones of Spain . …

In Your Bones

Forecasting Unremitting Sunshine After Weeks of Rain

I Must Have Blinked

Snow/Ice

Sentient Oneness

Shape Shifter

Fighting With Fire

Take Warning

Crying Climate Change

Mother Nature

The Earth as Witness

Poet’s Notes

II Politically Speaking

Abrupt Departure for School

Paddling One Canoe

Countryside-Shaped Cultures

EU

Humpty Dumpty on Wall St.

The Middle Class Fluke

UnSacred Sacrifice

Cull the UnTasseled Ones

Fated to be Canadian

Poet’s Notes

III Life’s Like That!

Up With Snails, Down With Slugs

Two-Ended Candle

The Trip of Your Life

Live and Let Live

Ah, Oneness

Thankfulness

Sunday DeFrocked

Music/Noise

I Am Known

365 words—12 months

Music as Community

Images need Words

Dreams/ Nightmares

Our Inner Worlds

Purposeful Dreaming

Sleep on It!

I meant to do my work today but . …

A Rainy Day

Good Conversation

Sluggish/ Speed

ReBut to Fool’s Gold

No Whimpering, Now

Poet’s Notes

IV Philosophically Speaking

Shadow Rider

Ahh, the Shadows!

Today Matters

Seeds—Deeds

Wonderful Time

All That Deceives, Enchants

Duty’s Despair

When You’re Down

Taking Free Will for Granted

Short Term, Long Run

Stretch for it!

A Lifetime of Looking for Loopholes

Jeans, Genius: Genes

Human Beans

Perfect Acts of Faith

Peaceful Paradox

At Chartres Cathedral

Fruition

Oh, the Myriad Masks

Ego

That’s Life

Poet’s Notes

V Spiritually Seeking

So, My Soul

One

The Inner Eye

Surrender

Life’s Elusiveness

The Evolution of Humanity

Treasure your Divinity

Be An Observer Of Yourself

Meditations of Freedom

The Peace that Passes Understanding

God=Chaos

It Was Meant

Tribes

I Tell Myself …

It Makes the World Go ‘Round

The Pendulum Stilled

Spare me Heaven

Sweet Release

Poet’s Notes

VI PASSAGES—Growing Up & Away

Home . . . !

GrandBabies

Small Wonders

A Child Knows

Age Seven and a Half

Devils Look Better in Pink

The First Day of School

Suddenly, the World is Shaped

Clipped Wings

Y Has a Long Tale

Lost

Click

Go Forth Boldly

Why Compete?

Musical Equalizer

Died of Wounds

Victims: Perpetrators

Faceless Voices

Infatuation

Ask!

Passages

Walk On

VII A Woman’s Perspective

Tell It Like It Is

Motherhood

The Music of Married Love

My Bones Won’t Rest

Morning Inglorious

Rag Rug

Menopause

Remembering September

Fleeting Glimpses

Almost, But Not Quite …

Stuck in this Rut

Autobiography of a Divorcee

Blame Crept In …

If I Had to be Born Female

The Coined Side of Forgiveness

Poet’s Notes

VIII Wrinkly Thinking

Retirement

BeCalming the Following Wind

To See Ourselves

I Dealt that Hand

Coping, With Love

Flagellating a Dead Horse

Old Man’s Darling

Morphing from the Calcified Chrysalis

Enlightened Senility

Deep Within Old Age-

All is Calm, All is Vague

Riding the Night Mare

Grand Finale

Passing the Layer Cake

Poet’s Notes

IX Conjecturing the Future’s Trajectory

Techno Bullet

I Sense Its Coming

Stumbling into the Future

The Second Dark Age

The Next Time Around

Stone Cold History

Cloning Reality

Historical Mulch

Resistance is Futile

Poet’s Notes

About the Author

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Thoughts, Oblivious of their Destination

I am the keyboard,

The carrier of the present moment;

Knowing nothing, just

Delivering fleeting thoughts

To cyberspace.

I am hurtling through space,

Knowing no true place;

Not comprehending my destiny,

Not exactly recalling my history.

My thoughts, these coalitions of ideas,

Are transient,

Wafting or hurtling like a volley tossed—

Impulsively, or deliberately—

Not knowing from whence they came,

Oblivious of their destination.

I am a poet.

Crying in the wind

Passing on images, musings

Sending