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LONG
DISTANCE
We
started in a pack on a level head
of
the downs. Sky leather.
Underfoot,
grass
flashy like the harbour wet below.
Five
or ten clubs. Ten, twenty
lads from each.
The
front line full of goers with an itch.
Behind
the die-hards who would have a go,
not
there to win. Take me,
surprised
I
had six miles in me, pleased
if
I came home not too far in the rear.
Pleased
to be elemental, fit enough
to
pass someone sometimes and not to loaf
uphill
too slowly. Felt good to be
in key
with
all those odds and sods, the thick and quick;
and
mucking in with my own pain, the slog
through
lung-burn, trip-ups, cramp. We’d
do
this
sport for earthy honour. Add
to that
the
flagellating twigs and a flint’s bite
at
blooded ankle. A man could
feel and see.
By
second wind I’d be with instant friends
who
jerked at my own pace, exchanging grins
like
squaddies sniped at, lobbed in the same stew.
That
was in ’fifty-one. We had no wars,
just
Saturdays. We’d jog along
for fifty or more years,
unlike
our granddads. For them not
twigs: barbed wire.
Alan
Marshfield
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