Our eyes snagged across the crowded room
Like velcro strips, we were hooked on each other
A quick one today, a couplet about a couple that sprung to mind as I walked to an engagement today.
(09.12.25)
© Ben Quant 2025
Photo by Priscilla Du Preez 🇨🇦 on Unsplash
Here, I’m safe to cast aside my faces,
not letting them slip, but tossing them without
a thought onto a pile heaped on the floor;
peeling off the accumulated layers,
revealing the pink and tender skin beneath,
exposing scars and fragile dreams and joys.
I wander naked and without a care,
secure that you will never laugh and point.
This is no mutually assured destruction,
love predicated on the fear of tit-
for-tat, but mutually assumed devotion.
I’ve been writing a series of devotional notes based upon the theme of rest. It struck me that you can only truly rest when you are able to relax about being yourself. It is a privilege to be able to find others with whom you can do this.
(30.07.25)
© Ben Quant 2025
Photo by Andre Mouton on Unsplash
Your absence wakes me,
Shakes me into consciousness,
Shouts into my ear,
I want you near, not far.
I keenly sense the space,
You occupied beside me,
The contours of the gap,
You usually fill. I will you back,
Recall your weight, your scent,
Your quiet breathing,
The gravitational pull that,
Holds me in your orbit.
I am contorted, my life abhors
This vacuum that has resulted.
It cannot be filled until
Your peace comes back
And yes, at last, resolves it.
Despite the late journey back yesterday, I woke early this morning, and this poem tumbled out.
(29.07.25)
© Ben Quant 2025
Photo by Madi Doell on Unsplash
Between faith and doubt there lives a tension
that neither pulls towards belief or tugs
towards betrayal. It sits in hesitation.
The story that you tell me calls for action,
begat the growing urge to spring to help,
but something in my bones warns me to hold.
I stand, suspended; caught between the move
to love and the opposing withdrawal of suspicion. I’m trapped, arrested in dissatisfaction.
I’ve had a couple of calls from someone seeking help. They might be genuine, but I find myself hesitating. This sits uneasy with me.
(19.05.25)
An evening out
With my best friend
A Sunday roast
With idle chat
A glass of red
Obligatory pud
Home for coffee
In time for bed
Our son’s had friends around for dinner, a perfect excuse to make ourselves scarce and to enjoy our own.
(04.05.25)
© Ben Quant 2025
Photo by Roppo Baker on Unsplash
Eleven thousand,
One hundred and thirty seven,
Spent married to you.
Who’s counting? I am.
Each matters, every one a
Choice made together.
From the heady start,
Somersaulting down the aisle,
When Ben married ‘Ken’.
The joy of shared walks,
Exploring each other’s hands,
And ways of thinking.
To expanding love,
The miracle of childbirth,
And growing as one.
Enduring Ofsted,
Learning how you like your tea,
Shared viva anger.
Funding the future,
Investing all my eggs in
One basket with you.
Every day matters,
From mundane daily chores to
Ecstatic highlights.
Eleven thousand,
One hundred and thirty seven,
Spent in loving you.
Ok, so yesterday’s hastily scrawled haiku didn’t convey the feeling behind it (the time was better spent doing that in person than absorbed on the mobile writing!) Hopefully this conveys some of that. And yes, our vicar did try and marry Ben and Ken, his embarrassment a cause for great delight for the rest of us!
(15.02.25)
© Ben Quant 2025
Opening the covers,
the end seemed far away,
but now the pages turn
more quickly; the epilogue
is closer than the start.
I long to read your lines
more deeply, to understand
their meaning and import,
so that our entwining lives
may be mutually enriched.
When all is said and done,
when the story has been told,
let it be known that I’ve
known love and fully loved,
for love’s our one true end.
Following on from yesterday’s poem and The Cure’s latest album.
‘And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love’ (1 Corinthians 13:13).
(18.11.24)
I shall never scale the heights of Everest,
explore the alien ocean depths beneath,
or skydive from the breathless edge of space.
I’ll never run the fastest 100 metres,
hop, step and jump into the record books,
or climb the podium of the Tour de France.
I will never win the Nobel Prize,
for scientific discoveries as yet undreamt,
or finally nailing down the theory of everything.
My paintings will not hang next to Van Gogh’s,
my verse be ranked with sonnets by the Bard,
or songs be played upon the radio.
My name will quickly fade from recollection,
there will not be biographies of me,
nor obituaries typed up in The Times.
But I will strive to love and that’s enough.
For love is all that’s truly asked of us,
and Love will be my harvest and reward.
Today I’ve been thinking about what it means to be fruitful as I’ve been planning various Harvest celebrations I shall be involved in. Paul’s words in Galatians 5:22 came to mind, ‘But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness and self-control’.
(24.09.24)
© Ben Quant 2024
This morning we broke bread with you.
This bread, freshly baked beforehand,
was tossed from one to another until
we all had enough to eat; a modern-
day feeding of the five thousand.
It was an unexpected twist,
this rugby ball distribution that
worked so magnificently, hilariously.
I laughed until I realised that
I could not toss Christ’s bread to you.
I could not toss it because of the wall
that stood between us, the wall from which
your enlarged face appeared and spoke.
I could not toss it because of the shrinking perimeter penning you in your home.
Remember the collapse of the Berlin Wall?
Walls can be bridged, dismantled, toppled,
but what can bridge the gap between us?
Only the outstretched bread of Christ,
the refusal to be enemies.
The biggest event at Greenbelt is the Sunday morning communion service. This morning it was supposed to be led by Daoud Nassar from Bethlehem. Sadly he could not join us, increased illegal settler activity around his farm, ‘The Tent of Nations,’ meant that he felt he had to stay. Instead he joined by live link, speaking from a large video screen. He and family refuse to respond to the threat with violence and instead seek to withstand peacefully, with the words ‘we refuse to be enemies’ emblazoned on their wall.
https://tentofnations.com/
(25.08.24)
© Ben Quant 2024
1,000 standing shoulder to shoulder,
a peaceful declaration that
enough’s enough, it’s time to stop
1,000 saying silently that
the rowdy aren’t the loudest and
their voices will be swamped by love
1,000 showing bravely that
our country isn’t built on borders,
false lines between the few and many
1,000 shouldering responsibility
for the nature of our land
and asylum seekers seeking safety
Inspired by the communities gathering in response to the recent riots.
(08.08.24 – edited 09.08.24)
© Ben Quant 2024
Ode for the Day 