In regal array the swan
Drifts serenely across the lake
With proud neck she stakes her claim
Outstretched wings proclaim her place
She rules all that she surveys
Usurpers swiftly subdued
In a bank holiday walk in Lea Valley we stopped to spend time with this majestic creature
(18.04.22)
© Ben Quant 2022
Poem 117 – The Heron
The heron lumbers on
This prehistoric throwback
Envelopes with its wings
Turning the world to shades
Of grey forboding shadows
When passing overhead
Aloft it struggles to
Maintain its altitude
But on the river bank
Transformed and elegant
It perches, patient, wise
With poised anticipation
Its stillness is unmatched
The clock hand paused
…until
The moment of decision
The throwing of the dart
A single precise strike
Efficient in its catch
Walking home from our Easter service a heron flew over, its struggles a clear contrast to its normal elegance.
(17.04.22)
© Ben Quant 2022
Poem 116 – Mistaken Identity
The bold headline nailed to the billboard shouts
The executioner’s next victim’s name
It reads, ‘Jesus, King of the Jews’, that’s who
Identified, betrayed through a guilty kiss
The leaders rant and rave, ‘This cannot be
Pilate, this is mistaken identity
This man is not our King he doesn’t speak
For us, rewrite your sign once more we plead!’
Mistaken identity, how could that be?
Recall the many things he’s said and done
The signs are there for all to see that this
Is no mere man. He’s the Chosen One
The blind can see, the lame can walk, and those
With leprosy are healed, and deaf ears opened
The dead are raised, the poor receive good news
…Tell me, what else might you expect to see?
Pilate’s response, ‘What I have written, I
Have written, and my sign will not be changed!’
But is this undermined by his cruel nails
That pin it there along with hands and feet?
The sky turns black as up above a final sigh
The one who hangs there drops lifeless and still
And with him hangs the question, were they right?
There surely is no way
That at our hand our God
Could die and find his end
Could we been mistaken?
I’ve been asked to write a poem reflecting on John 19:16-22 from the Bible for today’s Good Friday service. It struck me that in these few verses that like the religious leaders and Pilate we’re being asked the question, just who is this man.
(15.04.22)
© Ben Quant 2022
Poem 115 – A Striptease in Verse
Each line’s a public act of stripping off the layers
A tantalising glimpse of what’s beneath
The contours of my inner life
Abashed I hesitate
Before revealing
My naked
Self
The more I write, the more I realise that every act is an act of self revelation.
(07.04.22)
© Ben Quant 2022
Poem 114 – Fading
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
Poem 113 – The Ghost
I am alone, the metaphorical
Candle is glowing by my HD screen
Old fashioned? Perhaps, but I wonder if
My laptop is that which is out of place
For in the darkness every noise is old
The creaking of the building’s settling bones
The patient clock counting upon the wall
Imagined scratching of nocturnal mice
(I know they’re there although they’re rarely seen)
And in the dark our modern trappings fade
Am I the ghost that haunts this bygone night?
Is it my tapping that is out of place?
During the night’s progression I find that
Time wraps around itself until this now
Is all there is, and space constricts upon
The room until finally, I vanish
I’m writing this in the small hours of the night, downstairs, alone. A spooky time to write a poem.
(01.04.22)
© Ben Quant 2022
Poem 112 – The Award Goes To…
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
Poem 111 – Circular Identity
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
Poem 110 – Adam’s Drums
That old drum beat begins to sound once more
A pounding that propels the soldiers feet
Forward despite their tightly tied blindfolds
Momentum that once built is slow to stop
Is this an echo of a former rhythm?
A conflict of two dominant worldviews
Or is it deeper, hidden, our hardwired
Propensity to tend to selfish interest?
Across Ukraine the battle blunders on
And protests rise against the perpetrators
But when I look inside I sadly see
Those same old seeds do germinate in me
Whilst some may cite our finite human nature
Others the doctrine of original sin
Which one of us has never wanted to
Snatch what we could or lash out in our fury
So whilst I pray for peace in Putin’s war
And angry ask for his just punishment
I also seek forgiveness for myself
A hope that’s hypocritical I’m sure
I caught Jeremy Bowen saying something about the drum beat of the cold war in the current conflict in Ukraine. Got me thinking about the different drums we respond to
(26.03.22)
© Ben Quant 2022
Poem 109 – A Sea of Life
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
Ode for the Day 