Tuesday poem: Après le sable
August 12, 2024
Will the Iron Lady, her ample metal skirt
spreading like the nineteenth century,
miss the glimpse of two-piece sport
when women pushed a ball over a net
planted in a sudden burst of beach?
Will she recall spectators’ stands?
Will she dream of that quick-built strand?
PS Cottier
Image by Maksim Sokolov, licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license.
I've been glutting on sport lately, both AFL (live) and the Olympics (at ungodly hours). I particularly liked the huge weightlifters (and the wee ones), the wrestlers, and the beach volleyball, in the wonderful stadium on the Champ de Mars. This poem is about that sport.
At least the footy is still going!
He is risen indeed!
April 5, 2015
He is risen indeed!
— like Daniel Vettori, one-handed catch,
or Wingard marking like a boofy angel,
or Medhurst steadying before the net,
but with no ageing, no hamstring tweak,
and no second division.
And one day, we will see his face.
Perhaps tomorrow, or Tuesday week.
P.S. Cottier
Now, for benighted foreigners/those from non-cricketing, non-netball, non Australian Rules Football nations (for I hear that such places actually exist):
* Daniel Vettori is a cricketer who plays for New Zealand, who took a spectacular catch on the boundary in a recent World Cup match. I shall say no more about the eventual result of the tournament, although the word ‘plucky’ springs to mind. (Or plucked.)
* Chad Wingard is an AFL (Australian Football League) player who took a fantastic mark playing for Port Adelaide in a match against St Kilda last season. (A mark is where you leap up to catch the ball, often using another player as a fleshy ladder.)
* Natalie Medhurst is a prolific scorer in the Australian netball team, who exemplifies calmness and accuracy under pressure.
The ‘he’ of the title is rumoured to have been born in a non-cricketing, non-netball, non-Aussie Rules playing country. Can this possibly be true? (-: I shall try and understand this as I eat my weight in chocolate.
PS Cottier 