Ben Newman IF

Benjamin Newman, a software developer by day, has been filking since his college friends dragged him to his first convention his freshman year at Swarthmore. Since then, he has acquired two guitars and written almost 200 songs on a wide range of topics, including SF and fantasy, science, computers, and religion, both singly and in various whimsical juxtapositions. Ben has also organized filk programming for Philcon, ConCertino, and Pi-con.

Ben's Song Page: bn-songbook.dreamwidth.org

Representative Work for the 2021 Pegasus Awards

The Secret of the Festival of Sandcastles (mp3)

Copyright © by Benjamin Newman - All Rights Reserved
Used by permission

Then come with me, friends, let's go down to the sea
At the ebb of the tide, at the half of the moon
Bring buckets and shovels and afternoon tea
Slip across Shoreline Avenue, climb over the dune

And we'll build sandcastles, proud and tall
Cities for fairies to dwell in
And we'll spread our blankets and picnics, all
And watch 'til the tide brings the swell in

For civilizations rise and fall
And fate comes for us, be we large or small
The days dart past while the ages crawl
And the tale is revealed in the telling

When you build on the beach have you ever imagined
Diminutive fairies who come there to live?
Are they dwelling right now in the castles we've fashioned?
Look now and see, if you dare to believe...

With their smallness of size comes a briefer duration
The short span of time that we call a day
Is an age of the world for their civilization
Until the tide rises and sweeps it away

And yet think of the sandcastles their kids build
That each breaking wave washes over
With what strange, brief creatures might they be filled
Too small for our eyes to discover?

And do they tell stories, as children will
Of worlds yet smaller, or larger still?
Do you see at last what the sands reveal?
Within every world there's another

Now, who here has been to the capital city
And stood in the center of Origin Square?
Recall to your mind those colossal cathedrals
The spires and towers and palaces there

Our school-teachers take us to visit these towers
Whose age and whose makers, they say, are unknown
Not daring to name those mysterious powers
Much older than ancient and stronger than stone

Who built their sand-castles, proud and tall
Cities for people to dwell in
Are they watching still from the mountain wall?
Do they tell the same tale we are telling?

For worlds must end, be they large or small
And for men and fairies and titans, all
The days dart past while the ages crawl
'Til the turn of the tide brings the swell in

Our history begins with the works of the titans
The cities and nations they founded and taught
But legends still whispered 'round campfires at night
Tell of worlds gone before that were drowned and forgot

This world of the fairies we've built with our hands
Is more true and more real than a game that we play
Watch as their cities return into sand
You are titans to them -- can you hear when they pray?

The end will come, be it swift or slow
And none can preserve what they fashion
When we shape a world we must let it go
Can we keep the waves from their crashing?

Can we save this world for the fairies?-- No
If the titans still watch us, they never show
But things stand above as they stand below
So remember these worlds with compassion