Thank you both for your generous responses. I know Sue might have had
difficulty with the first cricket poem but this one was not about cricket
really.
Again thanks for reading. Arthur.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Bob Cooper" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Tuesday, May 04, 2004 3:27 PM
Subject: Re: For Matt; part two
> 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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