Yesterday
Our wedding day was many years away
Thirty of them to the very day
Oh, I believe in yesterday
Suddenly
Time has passed, how are we here today!
I’ve gained lines and look my hair’s gone grey
But I believe in yesterday
Troubles come and go
but I know you’re here to stay
when things go wrong, you stay strong
we hold on to yesterday
Hopefully
We’ll walk into the future, come what may
Knowing that our love won’t go away
‘Cause we believe in yesterday
A bit soppy/corny I know…
For Kate. Thank you.
(21.08.24)
© Ben Quant 2024
Month: Aug 2024
Poem 267 – Numbers
Numbers is found in the Jewish Torah,
the Christian Old Testament,
and the Muslim Tawrat.
It contains the lists of the living.
All three also share
an eye for an eye
and a tooth for a tooth.
Here are some numbers,
but this time the dead
not the living.
In Hamas’ attack
the 7th of October
1139 Israelis were killed.
251 taken hostage.
Each number a person.
Each person a family.
Each family a community.
Each one, one of us.
They say overall
more than 40,000 Palestinians
have died in response.
Each number a person.
Each person a family.
Each family a community.
Each one, one of us.
These numbers don’t scan
or make easy poetry
but that’s not the point.
They’re awkward.
They should be.
Now I don’t know
if these numbers are true
but I know that an eye for an eye
and a tooth for a tooth
was meant as a concession
and not an instruction,
a limit to violence
and not an extension.
I also know that each
one is too much,
that piling more on
won’t get us to zero.
Do call me naive
or say I’m simplistic
but to me it is simple:
violence breeds violence
and might isn’t right.
There’s only one way
we can stop this increase
and that is to stop.
It’s hard to know at a distance how reliable the numbers we’re hearing from this conflict are, but clearly they’re high. Sometimes the bravest and strongest response is to have the courage to ‘turn the other cheek’ as Jesus said in his commentary on ‘an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth’. Naive? Perhaps. Risky, certainly. But…
(20.08.24)
© Ben Quant 2024
Photo by Emad El Byed on Unsplash
Poem 266 – Distracted
I’m at my desk with pen in hand
or fingers on the keys,
I really ought to be getting on
instead I feel unease.
There’s something squatting in my mind
right where my work should be,
a mental barrier holding back
my productivity.
I keep on putting it aside,
whilst grasping my mind’s reigns,
only to discover that
I’ve picked it up again.
Perhaps the perfect answer to this
wretched predicament,
is to give in to it and to give it all
until my joy is spent.
My fear, however, of this tactic,
is if I give it a go,
the joy will never ever cease
and ever onwards flow.
And so to solve it instead I wrote
a poem about my plight, and
now back to work I must return
and hope it’s put to flight!
Returning from holiday to work is always a challenge… especially when another break, this time at Greenbelt Festival, soon beckons.
(19.08.24)
© Ben Quant 2024
Photo by Caleb Woods on Unsplash
Poem 265 – Mistaken Identity
The perfect V, they swam
across the lake towards
our luring hands, for food.
Two adults and their scruffy
signet, a few months old.
Still brown, inquisitive,
its newborn down beginning
to be replaced for flight.
Noisily they slurp the
water where we scattered
the pellets, hissing for more.
Watching their perfect forms
I wondered how one could
be seen as ugly or
confused with a duckling at all.
An afternoon stroll walking by the lakes along Lea Valley to visit our old friends and one new…
(18.08.24)
© Ben Quant 2024
Poem 264 – Waiting
Frankie was happier on the return leg,
senseless with mirth at his own jokes.
More sleep was had, the gradual detachment
that comes when homeward bound.
Retreating inwards we count –
weekend timetables require patience.
A mindless state’s achieved.
A better journey on the overnight Megabus, helped by the lively ceilidh last thing.
(17.08.24)
© Ben Quant 2024
Poem 263 – Farewell
Farewell pink swabs of rosebay willowherb
Farewell fields awash with barley gold
Farewell Ericht, your waters blue and fast
Farewell Blairgowrie, your starlit nights alive
Today we said a sad farewell to our campsite for the week and headed back to Edinburgh and then to home. Car returned to to the rental base, a bright red Fiat 500.
(16.08.24)
© Ben Quant 2024
Poem 262 – Dampened Spirits?
Today a hazy veil of rain
hangs over Perthshire’s gentle hills.
Yesterday’s yellow barley fields
have run, their colours washed away.
The buzzards’ mewling ceased, the only
whine belongs to windscreen wipers.
The drenching lasts until Dundee
where, even seeking refuge, we
are met by a generosity
that contrasts to the downcast skies.
Today is our day of rain. This hasn’t stopped if heading out to track the Dewar family’s passage through Dundee. What has most impressed me is the friendliness of the Scots, even on a day like this. (The sun came out mid-afternoon and the rain soon seemed a distant memory, especially when significant graves were found.)
(15.08.24)
© Ben Quant 2024
Poem 261 – Stones
Tall stones
Short stones
Flat stones
Wonky stones
Old stones
New stones
Pict stones
Standing stones
Mossy stones*
Flakey stones
Funny stones
John Lennon’s stone**
Dewar stones
Stewart stones
Kilgour stones
Skull & crossed bones
*No rolling stones!
**Not the John Lennon…
Spent the day today exploring areas connected to my wife’s family history in and around Blairgowrie. This inevitably means graveyards. Lots of them.
(14.08.24)
© Ben Quant 2024
Poem 260 – Camping Dawn Chorus
The clicking of bones:
a warm up stretch,
accompanied by
a yawn.
The sound of zips:
first fumbling with
the sleeping bags,
then doors,
inner and outer,
up and down,
a campsite’s rowdy
percussion.
Urgent feet
then crashing doors –
seems someone desperately
rushing.
It sounds as if
the whole world’s playing
just metres from
your pitch.
You check your watch
it must be late
but no it’s barely
six.
What is this madness?
With bleary eyes
you peer out but
to find,
there’s no one up
and all is still
but one child on the
horizon.
This morning wasn’t at all like this, although there a number of bird calls overnight. The familiar sound of zips, however, triggered many early morning campsite memories…
(13.08.24)
© Ben Quant 2024
Poem 259 – Frankie Boyle Is On Our Bus
Frankie Boyle is on our bus
Berating latecomers for holding us up.
He declares he’d have said no
if it wasn’t for their children.
I believe him. Relenting he moans
under his breath. Loudly.
A heckler winds him up.
He has a go at him too and then
is sent back to apologise.
He’s not having a good day
and you sense it isn’t over…
Our latecomers cannot whisper.
At four am they still haven’t mastered it.
I might become Frankie too.
My neck compresses every time I relax,
and although my legs go to sleep, I cannot.
The rain begins and the wipers break.
But just as all looks grey the Scottish
hills emerge to save the day
and all is good. Except for Frankie.
He has to find a replacement bus
for those going to Glasgow…
Overnight we travelled to Edinburgh on the Megabus. If I’m honest, I’m not quite with it yet today! I hope our conductor has a better day…
(12.08.24)
© Ben Quant 2024
Ode for the Day 