Author Archives: Benjamin White

A Better View after Matthew 18:22 It takes a long timeTo get to the beginning.It takes decades, maybe,To dig up to breaking dirt.Counting up to zeroFrom minus forty-nine –Counting up form negativeFive hundred thirty-nine –It’s seven times sevenTimes seven times time!The first shall be last,Because your first is far beneath you;Underground and dead where youContinueContinue reading “A Better View”

Photo Cred: Manfred Neumair Where Wolves Go I pressed my palm into the snowBeside your giant paw;My fingers stretched just longer thanThe claws above your toes;I want right now to understandYour running into lowsAnd over highs with empty jaws;I want to feel desire’s ache,Your longing’s lactic acid flowThat blood alone can slake.Could anything propel meContinueContinue reading “Where Wolves Go”

The choice is clear; I know the only thingFor anything is love. No matter whatThe claims of either side may be, we singCreation into nothingness, and cutThe chords that sing inside us unless weIn flowing fifths or even fourths, our choice,Addend the primal song of love. We’re free To make each note our own; butContinueContinue reading “I Could Never Write a Love Song”

One wakeful midnight, I went where my mindWould go, and found myself a ways down waysOf Would-Have-Beens, in woods where many kindsOf rancors live — red hot regret, despairAmong them most for me. But that night cameA coolness (maybe from the mountain airI welcomed through my open window frame,Or maybe the cicadas singing there)That placedContinueContinue reading “On Ways of Would-Have-Beens”

He Could Have Each time I’ve gone for a hike in the cloudsI’ve made my own way through rich loamy white.Once my boot sank deep and cried I aloud,”Don’t rain me down! I would die from this height!”To my surprise a cloud voice then replied,”You have no wings, no wand here to waft you,How cameContinueContinue reading “He Could Have”

On Missing the Perseid Meteor Shower  I didn’t have it in me; not this year. Instead, I dozed in dreamless sleep. Lights on, Heartsong silenced, dreamscapes dashed by TV Sounds, flickers, surfeit of nothingness squared.  Meanwhile, high above me, Earth’s atmosphere Was sparking falling stars. Now night’s gone, And morning dreams of what I failed to see Are only flicked off matches whenContinueContinue reading “On Missing the Perseid Meteor Shower”

Counting Birds On My Front Porch  That’s two hundred swallows, it must be, (200) Nine mallards chasing their lust free, (9) Four sparrows in street dirt get dusty, (4) And across the lake in the brush, I can just see One heron so stark-still he trusts me. (1)  Six geese gliding doubled in lake green, (6) Two mourning dove songsContinueContinue reading “Counting Birds On My Front Porch “

Nephelococcygia From νεφέλη (nephélē, “cloud”) +‎ κόκκῡξ (kókkūx, “cuckoo”) +‎ -ῐ́ᾱ (-íā). 1. cloud-cuckoo-land, a utopia, imaginary place with unrealistic or silly people.  Dragons and dolphins mostly; Draping my waking eyes in dreams, Whilst stare I high above to see Forever in the shapes that more than seem. They grow me toward whom I’m meant to be, This they must and do achieve. A singing bird in flight, A wolf’s head, hippo, cartoon ear, AllContinueContinue reading “Nephelococcygia “

for Gerard Manley Hopkins and the kingfishers he saw catch fire Oak, Elm and Cedar, Pitch Pine, Walnut, Spruce. Your names, dear friends, must speak and spell this place, And yet my habits baffle in disuse Of lips and lungs to lovingly embrace The shapes of Birch and Beach — of Tulip Tree — Unmaking ground beneath my feet, beneath WhichContinueContinue reading “On Forgetting the Names of Trees “

When was the first time you saw the long shadOws? Can you bring to light the light that stretchedYour darkness out behind you like a sadNess? Or before you like the joy of sketchedTomorrows? Or both at once as it oftEn is? Remember the white gravel walkFrom back behind the barn where grass so softLyContinueContinue reading “The Long Shadows”

If you know me, you know I love George MacDonald. I write down quotes as I read through his works. I haven’t read them all yet, but I’m getting closer! This quote felt like it was close to a found poem all by itself, but it evolved into a sonnet below. “Does he not demandContinueContinue reading “What I Know: A sonnet with the Marquis of Lossie”

A concave darkness, deep in eyes of stoneSees true and false in one uneasy breath;A bust and not the rest, no flesh and bone.The heartless head of one who dealt out deathIs, unsurprisingly, colorless, naught.His eyes are hollowed out by sculptor’s skill,The iris is a void, the pupil wroughtBy tender scraping, scratching, smoothing ‘tilTwo delicateContinueContinue reading “Bust of Pilate”

Thinking about feet and Matthew 7:24-27 on Maundy ThursdayWalking on the BeachDesiccation ready here,Crumbling sand crunches,Despite the wet sea breeze. Lumpy waves of wind-made moundsTo plod throughAs I seek the ocean’s prize;Not quite dunesBut dune-likeOn a smaller scale. Here, Near my home,The Jersey ShoreIs streaked with darker sand,Stirred throughWith bits of shells;This is a placeContinueContinue reading “Walking on the Beach”

More than a score of years ago I learnedBig Dipper spills her cup into the North,Merak and Dubhe have forever burnedAn arrow aimed at North Star’s clear “Go forth!”It seemed like magic to know the way,No matter where I wandered, she was found,A trust in heaven that could keep at bayThe doubts of lefts andContinueContinue reading “Reorientation”