Last week I lost three hours.
This was careless I know,
But at some point along
The way, they were stolen,
Snatched from under my nose.
Whoever took them must
Have had a fit of remorse,
For yesterday, they sneaked
Them back, leaving my body
Confused and out of sorts…
My body’s more than a little discombobulated today (what a great word that is!)
(12.11.25)
© Ben Quant 2025
Photo by Caleb Toranzo on Unsplash
‘I’m trying to carve out time’.
What a strange phrase that is,
as if time were a solid
block of wood or stone.
It’s true that running out
of time can be like running
headlong into a wall,
immutable and solid.
But can time be chiselled into
shape? Be forced into
a form that fits our hopes?
Have violence done upon it?
Surely time is fluid?
It simply runs around
one’s fingers, flows away,
oblivious to our lives.
Today, reflection upon the book ‘The Unhurried Pastor’ and the constant demand of deadlines, has had me thinking about the nature of time.
(15.09.25)
© Ben Quant 2025
Photo by its cataline on Unsplash
Distracted by the day’s events,
appointments, admin, strategic planning,
I almost forgot that I was meant
to write a verse in my fair hand,
of poetry before the day was out –
it didn’t need to be that grand.
My plan? To write each day throughout
the year, to capture thoughts and dreams,
moments of faith and times of doubt.
A busy day today, I almost forgot…
(18.08.25)
© Ben Quant 2025
Photo by Murray Campbell on Unsplash
There’s been no time
for rhyme today;
this is my only poem.
I will return
to try again,
when the verse is flowin’.
It’s been a full day!
(30.06.25)
© Ben Quant 2025
Photo by noor Younis on Unsplash
Sir Isaac Newton said momentum equals
an object’s mass times its velocity.
But where is time in that? Experience says
that time can have momentum, that driving force
that urges onwards, ever resolute.
Yesterday’s year becomes tomorrow’s week,
eighteen years a day, with time opposing
speed, becoming faster as I get slower.
We said farewell to a local minister today. It feels as if she’s just arrived, and yet it’s been 18 years. How does that work?
(15.06.25)
© Ben Quant 2025
Photo by Ahmad Ossayli on Unsplash
Today the clocks all say different times,
My sense of moment has been totally scrambled.
My brain is slightly discombobulated,
My words are coming out confused and jumbled.
The only saving grace is in the bathroom,
Where last autumn I forgot to change the clock,
Since then its screen has been an hour out,
But now I find it is, at last, tip-top!
Very bleary today after the switch to British Summer Time. It would be today that I had a delivery slot scheduled for between 7.30-9am – that’s 6.30-8am in yesterday’s time… Yuk.
(30.03.25)
© Ben Quant 2025
Photo by Towfiqu barbhuiya on Unsplash
Tonight, a theft,
As time is taken,
Some sixty minutes of
Sleep deprivation.
Swiped from under
Our weary eyes.
Predictable,
Yet still a surprise.
But do not fear,
This thief relents,
Each and every year,
And pays recompense!
Don’t forget the clocks go forward tonight (in the UK). Who will turn up an hour later for church tomorrow!…
(29.03.25)
© Ben Quant 2025
Photo by Brooke Campbell on Unsplash
Who knows what day it is this time of year?
With punctuation gone we wander through
The flowing hours, never changing gear,
And drift with nothing that we need to do.
The burbling moments trickle aimlessly
And wandering in their tide we meditate,
Sometimes parting to find some tributary
To idle in, then join to celebrate.
The space this absence gives is necessary,
Like sea around an island, it gives meaning,
Defining shape, allows us to be merry,
Highlighting that which lies behind the season.
And so with joy we join the angels’ mirth,
For Christ, God’s Son, our Saviour’s born on earth!
I originally got the date wrong when I posted my last poem. When this was pointed out I said ‘who knows what day it is this time of year!’ A good friend promptly threw down a gauntlet and challenged me to write a poem around that theme and he would do the same. Suspecting he would err towards something informal, I thought I’d go the opposite way and dive into the formal rhyming structure and second half twist of a sonnet!
(04.01.25)
© Ben Quant 2025
Flows through my fingers
I cannot grasp it’s currents
My poem’s unsaid
Ran out of time today….
(30.08.24)
© Ben Quant 2024
Photo by Jérôme Prax on Unsplash
In Aymara they say the past
is not behind us but before,
it’s the future that’s obscured
This country’s one we know,
its peaks and troughs have been well trod,
we’ve walked them all our lives,
whereas the future’s yet
unseen, its contours strange to us,
continuous but obscured.
It’s hidden from view. Like drunks,
we stumble backwards tugging the veil
to find out where we’ve been.
A while back I read a fascinating article on the BBC website about the relationship between time and language and space. The way some invert our usual concept of the past being behind us and the future before us caught my attention.
(01.08.24)
© Ben Quant 2024
Photo by Kaspars Eglitis on Unsplash
Ode for the Day 