Wide Open Spaces Poem by Tan Pratonix

Boyhood memories
Of a school with tree-filled
Wide open spaces
Where we would play ‘Kings and Queens'
With a rubber ball,
Dodging to avoid being hit
And becoming ‘It'.

Playing cricket before classes began,
(And during interval and lunch -
Such was our passion!)
Trying to build up big scores
With a tennis ball,
Which we whacked for sixes and fours -
Sometimes, to one's bad luck,
Getting out for a duck.

Once we played with a cork ball
And a king-size cricket bat,
I got hit on my thumb,
And tears rushed into my eyes.
(Even now, decades later,
I can bend my thumb backward)
Imagine how much that hurt!

Forty years later, I revisited the school.
The trees and open spaces had vanished.
Buildings stood everywhere,
Cramped, suffocating, dark.
The main school building,
(Over one hundred years old)
Choked by these ugly structures,
Seemed to have shrunk.

I went into the principal's office
(A shabby little bunk) ,
The dark bespectacled principal
Seemed a character from Dotheboys Hall.
My joy had faded,
Few words were spoken;
Happy boyhood memories
Are made to be broken.