Who would imagine a cricket ground
Had ever existed here,
Folded into a farm on the downland pasture,
Lapping the edge of the oakwood
And the buttercup-quilted rides?
For the Toll is returned to plough
After a century of combat,
Sown to a sea of blue-green waves
Beneath which it lies drowned.
And now,
Stick nor stone of the old pavilion,
Hook nor slat of the scoreboard left:
Never an echo of tumbling children,
Tattle of Edwardians,
Knocking their pipes out on the rough deal benches.
Foaming hawthorn and rhododendron
Have colonised the field-edge, spreading
Through copper beech and flowering chestnut
And adventitious saplings.
Where
Is the camaraderie
Of the side I played for so often here:
Their thunderous blows and heroical overs,
The days that flowed with sun and wind:
Stalemates in dismal drizzle,
And the finger of death uplifted in the dusk?
Where,
I might ask,
Are Nobby and Dave and the Colonel and Phil,
The two Pauls and the one and only
Moggy Worsfold and Arthur Spark?
I have failed to raise them
By staring out at the level meadow
As if I were Cadmus who had sown
The dragon's teeth and awaited
His armed men springing from the earth.
But I did untangle my way
Through the canopied darkness of what had been
The boundary. Among the laurel bushes
And snagging goose-grass and rabbit holes,
I found what I'd forgotten, hidden
Under a wide oak. For this
Was what they could not lightly move
In the rhythm of abandonment:
Here was the deep ground-bass and the solemn
Measure of constancy, foundry-born,
That had lasted so long.
And I laid
My arms across the surface, feeling
Under the rust and dust and pollen,
The summers that never seemed to move
And all the years gone by to the creak of iron.
What a beauty You bring those lost summers miraculously back to life.
Hey nice one, Kit - touches the bones of memories of the boy at large - and still alive! this from 'Baker' of New Coll. also a poet of less repute - rsb@usa.net now living in China, and Bali too cheers!
I do like this poem, with the little twist in the tale, the roller is still there.
A masterfully written poem, Kit. I was transfixed as I read every syllable. Thanks for sharing. Peace
This poem has not been translated into any other language yet.
I would like to translate this poem
What a sublime poem, my wife, who is an English teacher has given this gift to me. The poem conjures up past times in such a gentle, yet harsh way. Life is so transient, we must grab life and enjoy it.