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.