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
Not all bridges are forged in sweat and steel
Nor do they all traverse the globe but some
Convey us by our dreams and thoughts
Down secret passages unique to us
A scent transports us back to musty classrooms
Or changing rooms, slick with rowdy teenage bodies
Forgotten fragrances summon unbidden the past
Awakening lost relationships with force
The taste of lamb and fresh mint sauce steals me
To Sunday lunches at my grandparents’
The sound of knives chopping the herb just picked
With acid tang of vinegar poured over
Opening the photo album I’m once again
Surrounded by the Austrian Alps of Mayrhofen
I see you smiling at me from the lake
And savour afresh our early wedded life
These bridges are not solid in construction
As their physical counterparts may be
But shift as tidal waves flow on the sand
Capricious and yet precious in their rarity
My earlier poem about Brunel’s suspension bridge originally had other bridges in view. The discounted concept reappeared today.
(16.03.22)
© Ben Quant 2022
My weary inbox yawns, bored of
The soulless messages it circulates
But look, lurking amongst the drudge something
Deeper, my DNA results are in
This past geneticist is thrilled to find
The web of coded chains traversed
Binding in double-helix unity
Ancestral homes, ethnicity revived
I trace the paths along this oak’s branches
Running my finger past the unfamiliar
Whom suddenly belong to me and I
To them, my relatives, my blood unveiled
I now can claim with confidence that I
Stand on this ancient shore’s foundation
Its past and mine are spiritually entwined
My roots drink deeply, nourishing my soul
Whilst rooted in one spot its branches spread
Beyond as do its tendrils out of sight
To permeate Germanic past to reach
Beyond white cliffs to Scandinavian sands
My Ancestry DNA test findings have been released. Suddenly I have a lot more relatives.
(03.03.22)
© Ben Quant 2022
It was cold that night
Was there snow?
Or was it frost?
I don’t recall
We walked along the river
You wore many layers
To keep out the chill
I laughed as later
You unpeeled them
Defrosting in the pub
We went out
Starting as friends
But by the time
We’d reached the end
An unspoken change
Had occurred
We paused. I spoke it
Should we add
Another couple
To the list?
You said yes
We held hands
Electrifying
You couldn’t see but
I was smiling
It’s funny how walks
Can be so significant
A sideways step
Into a space
To reflect
To be and to grow
Soon after that
We went on another
Again you said yes
Or at least
I think you did
You certainly
Smothered me
Down on my knees
By the Thames
Again we emerged
Once more transformed
There have been many
More walks since then
As now we explore
Life’s bubbling stream
Of chaotic rapids
And lazy eddies
Together
And I still enjoy
Unpeeling the layers
That make up you
A poem for Valentine’s day.
(14.02.22)
© Ben Quant 2022
And did those feet in ancient time walk here?
Of course not! But I wonder if he came
What would he think about his legacy
Entrusted to the care of those he called?
Would it be recognisable to him
Whose name it bore? I hope so but I fear
That it might leave him flummoxed as to how
It came from what it was to what is now
But this should come as no surprise, as he
Has always lived outside, skirting around
The edge, living with those we overlook
Whilst we who he invited to come in
Our natural tendency is closing doors
To make ourselves feel safe and in contrast
Alas, to what we were before we met
And so, forgive us Father and moving
From Blake’s Jerusalem to Italy
Switching between establishment and heist
We pray, come blow those bloody doors away!
A counterpoint to Poem 79…
(28.01.22)
© Ben Quant 2022
