I Wish I'd Written This

Constants
By Benedict St Quentin Fitzpatrick

Turning I saw you

once

so clear

shadows move the grasses

silent winds

sift the debris slowly

around your feet

the red earth

moist

crossed with signs of night

tracks that soften

and fade

still

you remain.

My online friend Ben is an Aussie poet whom I first encountered — like so many others — on MySpace, back in the day. It seems to me that his poetry just keeps getting better and better. 

I first knew him as a writer of beautiful haiku and tanka. As you see, he also writes longer poems. Many focus on the Australian landscape and his close relationship with it since childhood. I love them for this reason, and also because they are poems of understatement and deceptively simple language.

I also love the mystery in the poem I've chosen: its quiet acceptance of the ineffable.

If you're on facebook, you'll find this and other poems in his Notes there. Also he has started a poetry blog on Wordpress. 

Another of Ben's passions is archery. He lists his religion as Buddhist. I always think there is a Samurai-like quality in the clarity of his poetry. 

Poems and photos used in ‘I Wish I’d Written This’ remain the property of the copyright holders (usually their authors).