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PREPARED
This
is the time of year they mow the heart
of the park’s molehill clumps
into
a level field to make a start
for crease and wicket stumps.
The
Council sees to us, its apparat
munificently jumps.
The
razored level looks as white as oat.
Its pale green stubble-roll
sneaks
like a rope dredged from a cockleboat
sunk in a lonely shoal.
Now
Spring wears its cow-parsley umpire’s coat
and this is where we’ll bowl!
‘Seasonal’
means preparing things like this:
to keep the world the same
for
Hanukkahs, Divalis, Christmases,
cricket, Olympic Games;
to
melt Jack Frost and boost our energies.
Flutes foam and puddings flame!
The
seasons wheel. The years
too, spoke by spoke.
Pavilions meet up.
Ed’s
tie is illegitimate, like his joke—
Pam tells him to sharrup.
May
no change hasten us. Let Joan’s new bloke
be the same jolly pup.
But
years will change, new colours will seep in:
the earth look dull as grout.
The
sun will seem to smoke like paraffin.
Umpires will jerk about.
The
roof will creak, no one know what we’ve been;
and soon we’re really out.
And
then we’ll wait and watch Orion bend
down to our underhill—
prepared
for wickets we will not defend,
for time we have to kill,
for
celebrations that we’ll not attend
and for the one we will.
Alan
Marshfield
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