port & poetry

It's time once again for Port and Poetry @ Rivermeade. Last year's theme was "Rugby", this year's is "Cricket"... but this is South Africa (Southern Hemisphere) and time for everything other than Cricket. Cricket in July? Perhaps in the cold reaches of the Great North? I have reflected on this theme:

Poetry and Port

an engagement of friends
sharing words head-scratched
borrowed and acknowledged
funny serious rude and prude
laughter Port-enhanced and real
a theme both comical and surreal

Cricket – in July!? when Tennis, Rugby
even Cycling does entrance
with Venus on the rise
and Hunter on the stage
Super XIV won and Tri-Nations lost
a World engagement immanent
our theme: Cricket – in July!?

Yes, Cricket! that game
of gentlemen and rogues
one team in and one team out
eleven men in until they’re out
a ball a bat an umpire or two
bowling batting fielding catching
Yes, Cricket! that mark of Empire!
our theme – in July!

In "researching" this poem I came across the following explanation of the game, one I saw years ago:

The Clear & Understandable Rules of Cricket

You have two sides, one out in the field and one in. Each man that's in the side that's in goes out, and when he's out he comes in and the next man goes in until he's out. When they are all out, the side that's out comes in and the side that's been in goes out and tries to get those coming in, out. Sometimes you get men still in and not out. When a man goes out to go in, the men who are out try to get him out, and when he is out he goes in and the next man in goes out and goes in. There are two men called umpires who stay out all the time and they decide when the men who are in are out. When both sides have been in and all the men have been given out, and both sides have been out twice after all the men have been in, including those who are not out, that is the end of the game!

Rennie D
21 July 2007

spiritual nourishment

While Rennie D appreciates Frank Wilson's accolade, it is of concern that an occasional blog can have greater impact than regular warming of a physical pew. It is encouraging, though, to see literary critics and reviewers experiencing the need to speak out about faith, especially in a world that is increasingly focused on, and disillusioned by, the polarity of fundamental religious fanaticism that derives from Islamic-backed terrorism and the disquieting response of modern American colonialism and empire-building.

Frank Wilson's Great minds ... is worth a read, as is another link that Frank points to: a kind of self-interview by John Derbyshire God & Me. Also worth reading is and article by Richard Morrison What the sneering legions of atheists need to remember.

Rennie D
5 November 2006