Cricketing Summer Poem by Ramesh Iyengar

Cricketing Summer
Each summer vacation is wonderful.
No school. No classes. No homework.
No punishment. No preparation.
Each morning's eastern light strikes us with happiness.
Friends wear t-shirts, play cricket with light tennis balls.
Under fire-like, too hot sun.
Each player runs across the pitch, like a cheetah.
Each thirsty batsman drinks a vessel of cool water,
and returns at sundown, dark, dirty, unclean and broken bats,
when amma scolds us in severe words,
Only to see us batting, fielding, declaring, in dreams.
…but as hateful June approaches,
the school threatens to take us all in through wide gates.
- - Ramesh Iyengar