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
Natural World
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 258 – Banksy’s Cat
Crowds gather
Traffic slows
Police pace
Tension grows
Excited chatter
Selfies shown
Meaning pondered
Headlines flow
Oblivious to it all
Our feline stretches
And wanders off
Yesterday we visited his latest in a series of animal themed street art pieces in London, this time Cricklewood
(11.08.24)
© Ben Quant 2024
Poem 257 – Old Man Toad
We keep an old metal bin lid upturned
and full of water for the birds.
On a hot day in spring it’s hilarious.
The young sparrows flock,
flapping their wings at a furious pace.
Splashing each other like teenagers,
their laughter fills the lawn.
Today I went to top it up.
Tipping out the water, I found Old Man Toad
huddled underneath in a grump,
like a grouchy grandad sat by the pool,
complaining about the youth of today.
He glowered at me.
Carefully, I covered him back up
and left him to it.
(10.08.24)
© Ben Quant 2024
Photo by Jaunathan Gagnon on Unsplash
Poem 245 – Riotous & Free
My garden lawn’s awash
with yellow dandelions
but I don’t care one jot!
Their golden manes gaze upwards
and glory in the sun.
Arm in arm they dance
in wild abandon with
dizzy daisies, violets,
and forget-me-nots; what joy!
Giddy with exuberance,
drunk and loud, their’s is
no polite society.
They relish in their freedom;
I long to find their beat.
Is it a deliberate effort to encourage wildlife, is simple laziness, you can decide, but I love seeing our lawn full of wild flowers in the sunshine.
(20.05.24)
© Ben Quant 2024
Poem 243 – Hedgerow Ragamuffins
The sky is wakened
by the urgent chatter
of sparrows bouncing
back and forth.
I can only see a few
but their chorus fills
my morning ears
and stirs me from
my slumbers.
They loiter in the bushes,
kicking cans and
and smoking joints, but
these avian urchins,
these hedgerow ragamuffins,
these cheeky chappies,
are anything but common
– they are the heralds
of the morn!
Pouring my morning cup of tea today, the air was suddenly
filled with the sound of sparrows singing; rowdy but beautiful.
(10.05.24)
© Ben Quant 2024
Photo by Jacques LE HENAFF on Unsplash
Poem 241 – When I Stopped to Actually Listen
Walking amidst the trees I hear:
blackcaps and great tits, chiffchaffs and wrens,
weaving a three dimensional tapestry.
Confined, the blackbird’s song frees me,
widens my perception, whilst the goldfinch
grants me wings amongst the leaves.
Picking out particular voices,
the choir starts to swell and I’m
enrapt by their musicality.
Recently I’ve been trying to learn to recognise and name birdsong. With the help of a phone app, this has opened my awareness to the choir around me. What was generic birdsong has become the glorious conversation of a varied throng of birds: an ear for the particular has enriched the appreciation of the whole.
(30.04.24)
© Ben Quant 2024
Photo by Andrea Lightfoot on Unsplash
Poem 240 – A New Day
The subtle scent of freshly woken grass
and crispness of the sky arrest me as
the door is opened on the dawning day.
Sparrows, already up, are catching the
proverbial early worm and the morning’s gossip;
the air is thickened with excited chatter.
Jostling students join them, calling out
greetings to newcomers in their growing flock.
I remember being in their number.
But now is not for melancholy thoughts or
nostalgic longing for carefree childhood days.
I wave goodbye to my departing wife
and note the soft cool air that curls around
my naked ankles; I’m still in my pajamas,
time to wash the night away and dress.
Cat Stevens comes to mind and Etch-a-Sketch
where with one swipe the old is wiped away
and the new is ushered in.
The smell of dew dampened grass greeted me as my wife left for work this morning, bringing with it the fading refrain of Morning Has Broken sung at a recent funeral.
(18.04.24)
© Ben Quant 2024
Photo by Sergio Otoya on Unsplash
Poem 239 – Returning to Epping Forest
We find a rare side street with no restrictions
and park upon the pavement, leaving room
for pedestrians and vehicles to pass.
The tarmac’s tense beneath our feet, uptight,
and rigid with the rigours of modern life –
on view, it knows no peace and must perform.
Stepping through the curtain of a hedge
we fall into another realm, a relic
of ancient landscapes, lost and long forgotten.
No tarmac here beneath our feet, instead
bracken unfurls it’s fingers, reaches from
the softness of this springy earth to wave
its fronds towards the canopy above.
Beneath these trees we find a foreign ease –
or rediscover rest our strivings have displaced.
No regimented conifers in rows,
instead the gently scattered beech and birch
doze idly dreaming by the oak and hornbeam.
The wood is still. No breeze or foreign sound
intrudes upon its peaceful contemplation.
Only the conversation of the birds
above accompanies us. Here we are dumbed
as time unwinds, slows down and stops awhile,
a moment that transports us to the ancient
forest that straddled this fair land. If only
we could stay and stay our hands of old.
Last weekend we visited Epping Forest, somewhere I haven’t walked in since I was a child. Although the sun was out and it was unseasonably warm and bright, underfoot was boggy. The air was humid and still and our conversation was stilled.
(17.04.24)
© Ben Quant 2024
Photo by Diliff, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Poem 238 – This Sea of Voices
Their conductor enters, knowingly grins,
then turns and lifts his hands. They rise
a swelling wave, bass to soprano.
This tide is made of many voices
eddies, waves and tributaries
that make a single sonic surge.
Seal-like, a young woman sits
beached upon a chair, her smile
bubbles forth contagiously;
laboured on the land, she finds
her freedom once submerged.
A moustache adorning tenor of
germanic tendencies (surely one
of Einstein’s heirs!) leans on a stick
supported by an office worker
(grey, bespectacled), who as the waters
break across the stage becomes
reborn, his face quickened, alive.
Straight gentleman (stiff upper lip,
bow-tied and greying, manicured beard),
sings by an unexpected companion;
a retired rocker reliving Lennon
(round specs, white hair and rhythmic pose).
You sense he isn’t really here
but there, a 60’s Peter Pan
lost in the coastal pools of youth.
A frail bewildered ghost, unsure,
is led, then settles in the song,
her anchor amidst the fog of age.
Another woman stands serene,
a silver moon reflected in the
ripples, singing a sirens song.
Unified, this sea of voices
crashes upon our sands as one
then dissipates to our shingle’s applause
left ringing in response.
Today’s poem was inspired by a show I recently attended featuring a variety of choirs. I was struck by how the disparate collection of characters they were formed from could make such a rousing, living sound.
(06.04.24)
© Ben Quant 2024
Photo by Jelena Koncar on Unsplash
Ode for the Day 
