Poem 818 – Them Foreigners

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Sometimes, I wonder who the foreigners are?
The ones housed in a nearby hotel I’ve come
to know, whose humanity has touched my soul?
Who had to turn away, with shuddering shoulders,
fearful for their family in Iran?
The ones who persevered, despite their stuttering
tongues, to find a way across the gap?
Who strove to get a job and contribute,
caring in ways that we cannot or won’t?
Or those celebrating its closing down
by insisting ‘them foreigners aren’t welcome here’?

The more I’ve got to know our neighbours, the more I’ve seen our shared humanity.
(12.03.26)

© Ben Quant 2026
Photo by Lisa Marie Theck on Unsplash

Poem 817 – The Hobbies

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Two graceful ballerinas scything
through the muggy, post-storm air.
A dart of russet tights and arc
of speckled chest, they swoop in turn
through freckled clouds of flying insects,
delighting in the ease at dining.

We stand and for awhile that’s all,
this choreography and us,
until the air begins to clear.
Then they too dissipate, leaving
us earthbound, leaden, wondering if
we’ll ever see their like again.

© Ben Quant 2026
Photo by Andy Morffew licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license

I started reading J.A. Baker’s The Peregrine today. It brought to mind the one and only time my wife and I saw two hobbies flying over the River Lee. An amazing sight.
(11.03.26)

Poem 814 – Imminent

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A late winter’s walk, a wander through
the misty wood before the spring arrives.
Above, hidden within the white damp veil,
a riot erupts of raucous birds aroused
by the promise of pending season change ahead.
Their chatter chimes like church bells summoning
the buds to bloom, confetti blossom showers
that freshly fill the air with fragrant colour.

Our Sunday afternoon walk was marked by the thick sound of birdsong.
(08.03.26)

© Ben Quant 2026
Photo by Doncoombez on Unsplash

Poem 813 – Twenty Qs

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Quirky and quizzical,
This quintessentially English
Quest to quantify
And quarrel over lists
To fill their qualifying
Quota, may be a quagmire
Of querulous quips and queries,
But quibbling over such questions
Is a worthy quarry,
A quixotic quiver of quanta,
That quickens not quashes
Our curiosity.

With the surname Quant, I want to promote the letter Q.
(07.03.26)

© Ben Quant 2026
Photo by Alexander Andrews on Unsplash

Poem 811 – Fading…

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Rereading this week’s poems
I find myself concerned
It seems that I am fading
New ways each day in turn

On Monday I lost hair
On Wednesday it was words
Today I find it’s sight
My prescription has got worse

At this rate by the weekend
With this ongoing theft
Of sight and sound and hairlines
There might be nothing left

A vacuum in the room
A space where I once stood
A gap in human memory
By absence now obscured

Inspired by a visit to the opticians this morning – it’s not as bad as it sounds!
(05.03.26)

© Ben Quant 2026
Photo by Pavlo Pavliuk on Unsplash

Poem 810 – Lost Wor(l)ds

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Forgotten words no longer used,
a language of the past that haunts
our tongue, I tenderly trace your text
and search your shapes in hope of meaning.

Were these passages profound
in thought, philosophy supreme,
or simply shopping lists and gossip,
our daily scratched humanity?

Did you think like us and dream
upon the page, playing with words
simply for the sake of it?
Or were your words just functionary?

One day, these words I’m typing now
will also be forgotten, echoes
of a long gone world, and merely
reproduced lines upon the screen.

When meaning is no longer known,
our sounds silenced, shorn of sense,
when words are gone do we fade too
like aging pencil on the page?

A new challenge for the year, I’ve decided to try and learn to read Old English, intrigued by the connections between our tongue and theirs.
(04.03.26)

© Ben Quant 2026
Photo first lines of Beowulf from the damaged Nowell Codex courtesy of Wiki Commons