"It was not me who wrote the lines herein, it was all of us."
These are the storms in which we were caught
The waves that carried us and light
For good will and companionship
for ever to all and each.
Life was good for us, It is good to be brave,
Nothing is better. Wine is more brilliant,
Women are more beautiful, The sky is bluer…
I have long held to the overly romanticized notion that no author's work is truly finished until they have passed from this earth. However, with gratitude to the encouragement and influence of those closest to me, I have collected this verse. Composed over the course of over 20 years, these poems have come from many places — the muse, years of editing, and perhaps even "the deep night of the universe," as Borges put it.
I hope that you are able to recall the inspiration and spirit behind their creation. For I know that you have struggled as I have struggled, yet also loved as I have loved.
I believe that poetry can awaken in us that which we felt, but did not know we knew. Ultimately, it was not me who wrote the lines herein, it was all of us.
Six lines. A perfect symmetry. One of the most shared poems in this collection.
Man stares at fire
Sees the world burning
Knows himself
Woman stares at fire
Feels herself burning
Knows the world
A poet for over twenty years, Benjamin Himes has composed verse across two continents — in the mountains of Corsica, on the Aegean, in Vienna in December, and on the hills of Austin, Texas. His work moves between the lyrical and the philosophical, the intimate and the cosmic.
He writes in the tradition of the poets who influence him most — those who believed that a poem is not complete until it can awaken in the reader something they felt but did not know they knew.
"The best poets steal and never call themselves the better. They just exist and write and write until the Universal Cosmic Fountain runs dry — which it never will."
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