All rise to greet our blushing bride who floats
Along the aisle to meet her grinning groom
Who smiles with pleasure mixed perhaps with nerves
Whilst waiting patiently for her arrival
Meaning they at last can clasp each other
In celebration never to let go
Last Saturday I had the wonderful privilege of marrying my daughter (I was the minister!) The two of them didn’t stop smiling all day…
(15.07.22)
© Ben Quant 2022
Photo J. Pes 2022
It isn’t long until you tie the knot
Exchange your rings, say vows that bind you tightly
I hope you find them not constraining chains
But liberating promises, security
Like tape that holds a graft firmly together
Until the two infuse becoming one
Releasing you to look ahead not back
To check your knots have not become undone
In just a few week’s time I’m conducting a marriage. This is always a privilege, but even more so this time as it is my daughter’s! Not surprisingly, I’m mulling over the question of what to say and pass on.
(23.06.22)
© Ben Quant 2022
Photo by Jeremy Wong
Let’s all keep mum, keep schtum
‘Cause careless talk costs lives
So cross your heart and hope
To die, don’t let the cat
Out of its bag
Please keep it under wraps
Don’t tell a soul, just tap
Your nose with knowing look
A wink perhaps no more
I plea, than that
And if not wraps, perhaps
A hat will do the job
Along with poker face
To keep it in its place
Our secret, shhh….
Work has kept me occupied of late, diverting creative juices, but when my Dad announced the theme of his next poetry groups meeting, I couldn’t resist.
(16.06.22)
© Ben Quant 2022
Photo by Kat Smith: https://www.pexels.com/photo/woman-placing-her-finger-between-her-lips-568025/
I possess a thousand faces
That’s one for every relationship
One for each time and mood and place
The one you know me by is not
The one recognised by my wife
Or friends or even enemies
The one I wear today is not
The same as yesterday, not quite
Experience has shaped, eroded,
And flexed it, making something new
But which of these is really me?
Are they all? Or none at all?
Is there throughout an essential core
Coded within, like human rock?
Or am I simply jetsam, washed
About by random tides of life
The announcement of the new Doctor got me thinking about the different faces we all wear.
(10.05.22)
© Ben Quant 2022
This morning’s prompt
A photo from this date
Taken a previous year
A smiling face looks out
I watch you past, eyes meeting
The younger you responds
This frozen moment lives
Superimposed on others
The album of our life
The weft and weave of time
The strands that cross the years
Entwining us together
Every morning my phone reminds me of photos taken this day in previous years. Today’s featured an arresting look at the camera as you walked past.
(28.04.22)
© Ben Quant 2022
Here lies the stone that stood above my grave
Declaring this to be my resting place
But sadly it no longer has the strength
To stand and lies prostrate in peace like me
The lichen spreads rash-like across its face
Obliterating with the green ivy
My life, my wife, my children and my work
The final thoughts of those who paid the bill
Now who I was is legible no longer
As gradually the elements erode
The once clear words that hold me so
I slip from view and slowly pass from memory
We’ve been away for a few days, exploring my wife’s family tree. This involves visiting graveyards and poking around ancient churches. Straining to read old gravestones I wondered how we’re remembered when the writing’s finally gone.
(05.04.22)
© Ben Quant 2022
One cracks a joke
And in response
It gets slapped down
To rein us in
It used to be
Your eye for mine
But violence met
With more violence
Is twice the pain
A better way
Must surely be
To turn the cheek
This act of strength
Defies the bully
Without becoming one
Is violence the best response? An eye for an eye was only meant to stop us from escalating levels of revenge in the name of justice, but does it make things right? I’m not sure it does.
(29.03.22)
© Ben Quant 2022
Remember childhood years that stretched
Where nothing seemed to change at all
Except our teeth. Remember how
They used to hang on fragile threads
Forever, wiggled by the tongue
Until one day they disappeared?
Eventually a switch was flicked
New genes asserted influence
A sudden surge, the teenage kick
With child and adult overlaid
Doubly exposed awhile before
The hormone shock shook out the child
A whiskey burn that makes us wince
A newborn person stands before
A mirror wondering ‘Who am I?
Where is the manual that informs
Us how to be a grown-up in
This strange and unfamiliar world?’
Until one day a match is made
Where each completes the other’s question
A few years on the subject shifts
A babe becomes its object as
We ask who it might take after
Ironic really as our process
Of metamorphosis has ended
The circle finally has closed
And we’ve become our parents and
The children’s teeth are getting loose
Nature or nurture?
(28.03.22)
© Ben Quant 2022
The doors open and in they flood
Like waves some crash with confidence
Relentless tide displacing toys
Whilst others, human barnacles
Cling to their carers’ legs constrained
Fearful of blundering bulldozers
Finally in the flotsam drifts
Worn down by lack of precious sleep
And full of care and caffeine highs
Every Wednesday our church holds its toddler group and I get to play and call it work. Its amazing how within moments a carefully set up room can look as if it has been hit by a tidal wave.
(23.03.22)
© Ben Quant 2022
Bathing South Down hills
The sun accompanies us
Smiling while we reminisce
A stroll across the years
Faithful orb that shines on us
Before at night retreating
Only to return again
Its loyalty unwavering
Nothing is required of us
No need for filling gaps
Simply being is enough
Silence is not amiss
Finally descending with
Its gentle amber kiss
Waves farewell as we depart
This friendship that persists
Managed to snatch a couple of days walking with old friends from Imperial this weekend. The intervening decades meant nothing.
(21.03.22)
© Ben Quant 2022
Ode for the Day 