I Saw Boys Playing Cricket . . .
. . . in white upon a cricket ground today
In Oxfordshire as if long centuries passed
And made no difference. There I saw the sway
Of bat. Tradition in a woollen cast,
A cast, though supple as the hips and thighs
Contained in it, maintains it purity.
The implication was that they are wise
To hold on to a rigid surety.
They played on green beneath a blue of sky
As blue as ever it has been before
The time of Chaucer even. Bowlers ply
The ball forever in this ancient war.
It is a calmness laid across the field
Of mannered strife. The boys refuse to yield . . .
~ Phillip Whidden