Hear Philip Car-Gomm introducing The Seven Valleys, a new book co-authored by Philip and RoMa, which explores the use of a Sufi story about the soul’s quest for Paradise as a means of spiritual development.
Send me a message to inquire about receiving a copy of my book, MEANT.
21st Mount Haemus Lecture: The Well and the Chapel: Confluence
“RoMa Johnson, a Druid scholar, sets out to build bridges between Druidism and Christianity, describing these different approaches as hailing from the Well and the Chapel. Her radical exposition of communion between the two addresses the intimacy and the visceral nature and fierce and tender love that is ever present...
July 6, 2020
Published Works
EPHA
As the sea-gnarled boatman guides his small craft in to shore, she sees a mottled crowd gathered on the strand: a few men come down from their chores, a few strong-armed women, their skirts sheltering peeking children. Her welcome party. She sees in their faces the eagerness of orphans...
August 10, 2020
Published Works
Omaha
I’m crying
a little bereft
I picture the girl in a cotton dress with a cardboard suitcase
standing by the side of a dusty road
out on the Plains somewhere and
she’s waiting for the bus to top the hill and
pull up with a snort of exhaust . . .
May 10, 2021
Nebraska Stories
Elephants
Thinking of a film—there may be more than one version—I saw again while in England. The documentary follows an old circus elephant (I think I may have seen her for real in my childhood, say 1949-1952, when my father’s friend Francis Krumenacher, who later changed his name to Frank Lee, came to our house in Ralston, Nebraska . . .
May 10, 2021
Nebraska Stories
4th of July Picnic
The Fourth of July family reunion takes over the entire town park. The men place huge picnic tables end to end to make one long trestle down the middle of the park.
The women set out the food—every morsel carried in from the farms covered with damp tea towels, held in laps, wedged in the back seat between kids. . .
August 29, 2021
Nebraska Stories
Blanche
She pushes open the screen door and steps through, brushing a wet strand of hair off her flushed face, shielding her eyes from the sudden glare, trading the heat of the kitchen for the heat of the day.
The hens bustle and gossip in the yard, picking in the dirt in the false hope of a worm. . .
August 29, 2021
Nebraska Stories
Rusty
Grandpa had a horse named Rusty.
Our grandparents lived on homesteaded land in Nebraska and us kids spent summer days on the farm. We were handed an egg sandwich and sent outside in the morning and not let in ‘til supper. Kids were like dogs, it was felt, not civilized, not yet fully human, not fit to be in the house during the day. . .
August 29, 2021
Nebraska Stories
Thanksgiving
Our parents pile us in the DeSoto and we go “home” for Thanksgiving. (“Home” is Nebraska; “the house” is where we live.)Dad sings Oh Mister Moon, Shine on Harvest Moon and all the other songs he knows with the moon in them, and Shenandoah and I Told a Lie to my Heart and all kinda Hank Williams as he drives . . .
August 29, 2021
Nebraska Stories
Dial M for Murder
Saturday night. All the kids old enough to stay up past 7 pm are sent to the movie house under orders to
Behave! and
Watch out for each other!
The movie house is a skinny, dilapidated clapboard building at the end of Main Street, across from the Town Hall. . .
August 29, 2021
Nebraska Stories
About those Boots by the Door
diamond studded footsteps stamp out time to the forged platinum shadow walkers,
balancing on tighter ropes, navigating a razor thin edge
above the cavernous void, a friendly abyss
where fireflies are dancing like trophies
presented upon the successful tapping
by effervescent ruby colored cosmologists
awarded for those who found the most black holes . . .
February 18, 2021
About that Tree
Perhaps someday I'll believe my eyes
when, in time to come,
endless deserts of earthy sand
stop hiding your gleeful chortles,
showing how empty the sky was
before dawn's greasy streaks
turn to green summery shades,
and blazing into
a glorious emerald harvest
all bare branches covered with hospitable
leaf-shaped snails . . .
February 18, 2021
Apogee
There comes a time in every outward journey
when you reach apogee
the mathematical
hypothetical
mystical instant of the orbit
when you are furthest from your life
and you feel the curve of it
the swerve of it
the pull of it
toward home . . .
February 18, 2021
Plague Diaries
The Mirage
Last week it all seemed like a mirage, really, I mean we knew, of course, but it wasn’t real if you know what I mean. The map of the world turned red, country by country and I found myself thinking, well, we’re all one color now...
February 18, 2021
Eggs in Lewes
I boil an egg.
The kitchen smells of egg
well, it’s not a kitchen really
a cooker
on a shelf
under a window
in a hut
in a garden
in a village
in a park
quaint and lovely as those painted eggs we used to get
nested within each other . . .
December 23, 2020
Two-Candle Morning
Oh these two-candle mornings
post-Samhain
the ephemeral veil
between us and the beloved dead
thickens once more
folds over and into itself . . .
December 10, 2020
Alien Rest Stops
I have come to believe that aliens are among us,
But that doesn’t mean they belong.
They might walk-in to our disused bodies,
But it would have to be—to them—
Like one of us putting on sealskin trousers,
Then swimming out to sea.
Inhuman inside a human...
July 6, 2020
Arctic Wings
South of Iceland I look down and see her
Cresting the fetch in her tiny craft,
Riding down the long green wave.
Brave she sits inside the skin
Carrying only one small dirk,
One dram of water.
All around her the seabirds soar
Blinding white as seraphim,
White winged
Long necked...
July 6, 2020
Longing
There was a way she walked that reminded them
of someone…
a flickering memory… a hand reaching for a hem.
Sometimes little bits of light escaped
from the folds and seams of her clothes
ephemeral as fireflies, not catchable, not caught, but
sticky in a way, as if
if you touched one...
July 6, 2020
Wild Geese over Ronaldsay
Flap, flap, flap, flap, flap, flap, flap, flap, flap, flap, flap, flap
Clack, clack, clack, clack, clack, clack, clack, clack, clack, clack
Whuh, huh, whuh, huh, whuh, huh, whuh, huh, whuh, huh, whuh
What is the wind (around us) made of?
Not hard.
The breath of sun.
The sweat of moon...
July 6, 2020
Sisters
What if they were to meet
in the cloistered garden, there on Iona,
What would they say to one another?
+ I am the Bride of Christ.
• I am the bride of no man.
+ I clothe myself in humility and walk in silence...
July 6, 2020