Football Poem by Haris Adhikari

We used to play with a small ball
made out of an old sock
with one or two holes in it—
all sewn,
and tightened
by stuffing
scraps of useless cloth
or jute sack;
and the more the ball became tattered,
the more we had to sew it
by pulling together
each of its fraying fringes, and when
we couldn't sew it any more,
we used to clothe it
in another sock, and then
it'd look neat and clean again!

But these days
I've given up playing football altogether—
when I myself
started getting customarily kicked off, I realized
that the whole country... the whole Earth itself
is also being kicked off
among the A-One, drunk players,
the question is only
of goals and exertion
of force and pressure, whereas
the boarders of nations—provinces
are in fraying rags, with too many
regions razed to the ground.
Still … no player comes to the fore
to sew... and save
this ball of Earth.