Greenlane Poetry

Outfield

This is the time
That we would travel to the coast
To air the beds, secure the fence
To reckon up the winter's loss

Brown slow-sprouting time except for
Primrose stars amid the blasted grass
And cold and tea and beans
Amid the leaking calor gas

Stark gorse and cowering sheep
Sparse winter still upon the hill
Flotsam banked up on the beach where
Spring sun challenges the chill east-wind

Toward the cliffs
We need new maps to show how wild
The seas in winter madness raged
Its force has washed away our stage

This became the pitch
The beach on which
My father bowled at me all day
Friends scattered at the water's edge

Sparring, juggling with high shots
At deep long leg, mid-wicket in the spray
My mother standing at back-stop
Until we trudged up home

To lie upon the burning summer turf
As inland Sobers neared another ton
The outfield empty at the close of play
The cover fielders long since gone