Bowls
Fine for an hour, then dull, despite a summer sun.
Green tedium. But do beware,
if nudged a bit, this game is good
at slowly rolling on and on and on:
little genuflections – bows, knee-bends,
cupped hands, unfolding arms,
weave in the dying light their tapestry
of shadows and perpetuate
the minor knocks, near misses, clusterings
and calls of ‘Way too heavy, Jim!’
into a never-ending winding-down,
a loop of letting go.
Keith Hutson farms a windy hillside in Halifax, West Yorkshire and coaches boxing. His poems have appeared in several journals including Prole,Pennine Platform, Hinterland and Butcher’s Dog.