Hi Arthur,
I think this is one of the best written pieces I've read this year! It says
things about places, experiences, feelings, I don't think I'll forget.
Bob
>From: Arthur Seeley <[log in to unmask]>
>Reply-To: The Pennine Poetry Works <[log in to unmask]>
>To: [log in to unmask]
>Subject: For Matt; part two
>Date: Tue, 27 Apr 2004 13:03:54 +0100
>
>Hi Matt, glad to see you enjoying the best game in the world.
>My dream of heaven is to be going out to bat with geoff Boycatt and saying'
>OK, Geoff, I'll take first knock.'
>I am seventy-two next and my days of sunshine, cut grass and the sound of
>ball on bat are long gone. I nod hello to many a grey head around town,
>knowing them from the game and having played with or against them and no
>more than that.
>At seventy two this is the sort of thing that happens:
>
>
>Evening News.
>
>
>
>Carr, Stuart James. Quietly, at home...
>
>Ha! So Staggers is dead then.
>
>
>
>Should I go or not? We weren't really friends,
>
>members of the same team that held glory aloft
>
>for two seasons running, forty years ago.
>
>He worked in a factory or something, I think.
>
>
>
> I shall probably be busy on the day
>
>and the weather will be miserable.
>
>I hate standing around
>
>as the Vicar mouths an eulogy
>
>over someone he never knew.
>
>
>
>Then after,
>
>trying to find something to say that sounds right
>
>looking at my shoes
>
>reading the messages on the flowers,
>
>where the ink smudges and blurs,
>
>as rain scratches at the cellophane
>
>and the hills loom through the greyness.
>
>
>
>Should I send some flowers?
>
>We weren't really friends.
>
>
>
>Beyond the crematorium, beside the one flat field
>
>in all those hills, is a battered pavilion
>
>with flapping tarred roof trailing fingers of rain from its eaves.
>
> Draggled sheep nibble and drip at deep third man
>
>and the wind steals runs over the square.
>
>
>
>That day, one summer, long ago
>
>he was brother to the wind,
>
>his hair a shag of tangled sunlight
>
>as he swept the long boundary
>
>and took that blinder at deep square leg
>
>that won the match and the cup.
>
>Tumbling in laughter
>
>through the brilliance of the afternoon
>
>with the ball clutched jubilantly to his chest.
>
>How we all slapped his sweat run back,
>
>hugged him and shouted in each other's faces.
>
>
>
> I think I will go, show my face,
>
>even though we weren't really friends
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