The Bowling Club

Now that the prunus trees are spilling
pink blossom across the suburbs
it’s recruiting time at the bowling club.
A banner tacked to the park railings
offers fun days and lessons
from experts to tempt us to trot along
to the club that’s full of go, and join.
I shan’t. I couldn’t face the long
summer afternoons of stooping over
a lawn superior to my lounge carpet
and I don’t want to wear linen whites
which would insist my buttocks are solid
as Christmas puddings when I fail
to roll the bowl anywhere near the jack.
I’d detest the intense competition,
the in-depth analyses of matches
and besides my left-of centre leanings,
my poems and other eccentricities
would lead to pursed lips in the club-room
as we sipped tea and nibbled biscuits.

Abolish the clubhouse then, the grounds
with electric fences tucked in its hedges
that warn thieves not to break in?
Abolish afternoons on the daisyless lawn
and shelves gleaming with silver triumph?
Absolutely not. And not just because
I often glimpse the almost luminous
lime wings of the woodpecker that breeds
among its sycamores and laburnums,
its evergreens and privets. The club
with all its traditions is part of the park,
part of the rhythm of things. Demolish it
and I suspect the playground swings
would be threatened, fear bulldozers
would tear apart the tennis courts.
At night I’d dream calamity had struck
the sturdy legs of the viaduct, watch them
tremble and collapse. Every day
I worry about the world’s fragility
but in the changeless green of the park
I breathe reassurance. The club stays.
Oh long live the bowling club!
 

Subscribe to Quadrant magazine here…