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tomstewart80.bsky.social
Tom Stewart
@tomstewart80.bsky.social
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tomstewart80.bsky.social
Do you know this poem?
Who would imagine a cricket ground Had ever existed here, Folded into a farm on the downland pasture, Lapping the edge of the oakwood And the buttercup-quilted rides? For the Toll is returned to plough After a century of combat, Sown to a sea of blue-green waves Beneath which it lies drowned. And now, Stick nor stone of the old pavilion, Hook nor slat of the scoreboard left: Never an echo of tumbling children, Tattle of Edwardians, Knocking their pipes out on the rough deal benches. Foaming hawthorn and rhododendron Have colonised the field-edge, spreading Through copper beech and flowering chestnut And adventitious saplings. Where Is the camaraderie Of the side I played for so often here: Their thunderous blows and heroical overs, The days that flowed with sun and wind: Stalemates in dismal drizzle, And the finger of death uplifted in the dusk? Where, I might ask, Are Nobby and Dave and the Colonel and Phil, The two Pauls and the one and only Moggy Worsfold and Arthur Spark? I have failed to raise them By staring out at the level meadow As if I were Cadmus who had sown The dragon's teeth and awaited His armed men springing from the earth. But I did untangle my way Through the canopied darkness of what had been The boundary. Among the laurel bushes And snagging goose-grass and rabbit holes, I found what I'd forgotten, hidden Under a wide oak. For this Was what they could not lightly move In the rhythm of abandonment: Here was the deep ground-bass and the solemn Measure of constancy, foundry-born, That had lasted so long. And I laid My arms across the surface, feeling Under the rust and dust and pollen, The summers that never seemed to move And all the years gone by to the creak of iron. Kit Wright
July 9, 2025 at 9:03 AM
tomstewart80.bsky.social
I used to run with a pretty tough gang when I was younger

The gang:
June 23, 2025 at 7:06 AM