Poem 900 – The Visit

Heart beating, nervous, how will you be received?
You tentatively knock upon the waiting door,
How will they react to the life that you’ve conceived?
Will they question what you’ve come here for?
Your years are few, a tender maid, perhaps,
A bud not fully bloomed and yet in you
A seed is laid that one day will climax
Upon a tree and there be proved so true.
And on that day all questions will be yours,
The sky turned black, your future darkened too.
Will it have been worth it, the struggle and the toil,
This life the angel invited you to choose?
But opening the door your cousin’s pregnant too
With joy the unborn child leaps in her womb.

A sonnet for the ‘Feast of Visitation’.
(02.06.26)

© Ben Quant 2026
Photo by Linford Miles on Unsplash

Poem 731 – Mary’s Mum

Why did you go and do that,
Are you out of your little mind?
A pea in the pod? You’re crazy!
A bun in the oven? You’re mad!

They’re saying you’re up the duff,
If not perhaps it’s the pole,
Or have you gone all old school
And are wearing your bustle wrong…

Knocked up – knocked out more like –
This isn’t the time for this.
Have you gone and got yourself pregnant,
For the sake of a hasty kiss?

I hope for your sake he’s special,
You’ve a life of pain ahead,
Don’t be telling me you did nothing
And this child was heaven sent…

This is the time to live,
Play hard, make friends, have fun,
Not sacrifice it all,
For the life of a single mum.

Inevitably the Christmas story is very much on my mind right now.
(15.12.25)

© Ben Quant 2025
Photo by freestocks on Unsplash