A game of marbles
In East Maitland, in the shining fifties,
on Green Hill a game of marbles is taking place.
Among the taws and tombowlers and the conny agates and blood reals,
the boy who is to be my father kneels and bends his thumb.
Spins his stone away, and cannot know what is to come.
Outside the raw circle of dirt, the stakes are high. These stones are
prized,
and treasured glass is kept in canvas bags with cotton seams.
The best cost two and six! - chipped fortunes cast upon the ground,
they can be lost too fast: in this tight world
they are the chisels of pride and the hammers of esteem.
And always there is loss, and gain, and accusation.
Whether a line is cribbed, a marble stolen.
Pugnacious, the larvae of my father rises;
there is a fight, the other boy is broken, and afternoon looks to night.
Far below the tiny tragic game, carthorses ply their trade, but one in
ten own cars.
The shops swell with cream refrigerators and the promise of television.
My grandparents win a ballot for the right to own their house; moving
in,
they hang the Sacred Heart upon the wall and do not smoke.
And there will be a flood. The streets will fill, men in surfboats will
spin above the awnings, poking for sunken shoppers with long poles.
The broken boy will drown. The game of marbles, and the afternoon, will
be forgotten.
Caleb Cluff
Majorca, Victoria
07/06/06
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