poems by

Nancy Walker Benjamin

Poetry chapbook, 47 pages, $12 cover price

ISBN: 978-1-59948-433-4

Release date: 2013

Nancy Walker Benjamin, a former writer/editor and high school teacher of French and Russian, lives in Chapel Hill, NC with her husband, Jack, a retired pediatrician. She has authored two previous books: Children in Need, 1966, a picture book for children on poverty in America, and Grandparents’ Guide to Books for Babies, 2002. This is her first book of poems.

Nancy Benjamin shares keen observations from the seasons of her heart. In still moments between the quiet waters of thought, her poems offer good words, good ways to see this world anew.  —Ruth Moose

TIME

She steals an artist’s palette
to paint her melody
her notes a vivid canvas
for each alone to see.

She dabs in Impressionist blur
the beat of hurried days
the true design only discerned
when we draw back to gaze.

For those who wait in hospital
halls, captive to unspoken fears
a monochrome of minor chords
stretches minutes into years.

Yet for revelers right next door
she splashes a scarlet wash.
Arpeggios of laughter rip
through hours in a rush.

A capricious artist,
she rules us at her pleasure
though with watches digital
we think we have her measure.

GRATITUDE

With age
old hurts
may be healed

when wounding words
that once pierced
the skin of our psyche
and spread their poison
within us
have been removed
by time’s surgeon
their bleeding stanched
and bandaged,

when shunning
innuendos
of former friends
that once exiled us
from warmth
have been muffled
by patchwork quilts
of passing years
and lost their
power to chill.

A new skin
may slowly grow
memory’s dark
scars fade
with the generous
salve of grace
and the friendship
that once was
now may be again.

TO THE LIGHT TRAVELER

I’d like to be you
who stride swiftly by
as I struggle with bags
at a balky “self check-in”
that won’t.

In one hand you hold
boarding pass and ID,
briefcase slung
over your shoulder
headed for Security

while way back behind
in a slow-moving line
I kick my baggage
dig in my duffel
for documents.

There you are again,
en route to the gate,
in line for a latte
(and why not a paper?
your hands are free).

It must be nice to be you,
though I do have some questions:
did you remember a warm
sweater in case it turns cold?
A short-sleeved shirt for the heat?

I trust you have slippers
for cold bathroom floors
and clean clothes for the evening
of course. And surely you packed
those pills for “what-ifs?”

Where’s your raincoat, umbrella?
Never can tell with the weather.
You know, I’m quite worried
for you—there’s no way
you have packed enough stuff.