Running with Orion

Running with Orion

By Jonathan Bennett

Running with Orion as night begins

And the year’s first full month comes to an end.

We run circles familiar underfoot

To hide from observer’s eyes we’re chasing.

He’s been. He is. He knows. And he doesn’t,

I believe, much the same as I don’t know

What’s up ahead that is so important

It requires icy-cold nights out of doors

When there’s warmth and company waiting

In this, a moment I was running down

On colder nights in a miles-away town.

Sexagesima

Sexagesima

By Jonathan Bennett

Will they drown in this deluge,

Held back so long the clouds broke

In a violent, uncontrolled storm

That has produced this flood?

Have I unleashed on us disease,

Shattering the delicate health

That will lead to the demise

Since you will not seek a healer?

Has my taking pen and pulling

At this delicate cloth’s seams

Set by washing, these threads

Are now ruined and torn?

Does this new ink poured

Into unsuspecting containers

Unprepared for freshness in their skins

Break down, react, and burst?

Should I have restrained,

Refusing a plate at this buffet

Or not partaking of so much

Instead continuing in my long fast?

Before the Break

Before the Break

By Jonathan Bennett

It will happen, often without any warning

Such as when filling bowls in the morning

To please hungry, fuzzy, feline faces.

Questions, answers fill the quiet spaces.

This time it’s someone from Paris Review

Who has come to conduct an interview.

We’re talking about, of course, this moment—

One of joy but also disappointment—

Which is the last before the change, the Break.

Did it rest upon a choice that I’ll make

Or a chance statement in conversation?

I’m hanging on in anticipation,

But the life I love, I live intervenes

For a moment enough to break the scene,

And I miss how and when the Break arrives.

So, I pour my cup, boot up before five,

Before work, to try and write a few words

And discover the ending I’ve not heard.

Such Knowledge (Psalm 139:6)

Such Knowledge (Psalm 139:6)

By Jonathan Bennett

John, still warm in his mother's womb, leapt up;
Joseph took unto himself one with child;
Zechariah prophesied while naming;
    Such knowledge was too wonderful for them.


Elisabeth was honored by a guest;
Anna prophesied of His redemption;
And Mary, Mary pondered in her heart;
    Such knowledge was too wonderful for them.


But what of myself in this season,
Am I moved as such by the old story?
Do I truly comprehend who He is?
    Is such knowledge too wonderful for me?

Watching, By Night

Watching, By Night

By Jonathan Bennett

Bundled in coat and gloves or barefoot in the grass,
I stand beneath the past, unfolded like a map,
Tracing the boundaries of celestial nations.
I observe in cold, still or humid evening air.
I watch as battles begin, end, and rage anew;
I see foretellings of kings rising, falling, and born
As their heralds travel along this starry grid.
And I listen, beneath the howl of winter's wind
Or over chorus of summer's nocturnal choir,
To hear the song that shepherds heard: watching, by night.