The Sunday Poem: Mini-Meadows 1994 by Raymond Antrobus (for Benjamin Zephaniah)

Minutes after detaining him, police bashed 

Benjamin’s head in. He’d said nothing, 

just out jogging, a black dread vegan 

with no bad intention to any living thing. 

Later, still silent, Benjamin left the cell, 

signed the release form and marched 

to mini-meadows farm to spend time 

kneeling face to face with animals 

behind wire mesh fences – turkeys 

pigs, waddling geese. Benjamin gave twenty 

minutes to running his palm over the ears 

of a donkey noisily chewing carrots. 

Benjamin kept talking, talking until all his words 

got free. The donkey, geese, turkeys, pigs, 

not one of the animals watched Benjamin

as he sighed, stood up untamed 

then turned, bounding out into the air. 

Raymond Antrobus will join Michael Rosen and others as part of Benjamin Zephaniah: A Celebration at the Southbank Centre’s Poetry International festival on Friday 10 July. Read Rosen’s appreciation of Zephaniah here.

Antrobus’s memoir The Quiet Ear is published on 3 September in paperback.

Illustration by Chris Riddell