Test Match Sabina Park

Proudly wearing the rosette of my skin

_______________________________________________________________________
I strut into Sabina
_________________________________________________________________________________________
England boycotting excitement bravely,
_______________________________________________________________________
something badly amiss.
_______________________________________________________________________________________

Cricket. Not the game they play at Lords,

______________________________________________________________________
the crowd whoever saw a crowd
____________________________________________________________________________
at a cricket match? are caged
______________________________________________________________________________
vociferous partisans, quick to take offence.
____________________________________________________________________

England sixty eight for none at lunch.

__________________________________________________________________________
What sort o battin dat man?
__________________________________________________________________________________
dem kaaan play cricket again,
_________________________________________________________________________________
praps dem should-a-borrow Lawrence Rowe!
_________________________________________________________________

And on it goes, the wicket slow

________________________________________________________________________________
as the batting and the crowd restless.
__________________________________________________________________________
Eh white bwoy, how you brudders dem
________________________________________________________________________

does sen we sleep so? Me a pay monies

________________________________________________________________________
fe watch dis foolishness? Cho!
________________________________________________________________________________

So I try to explain in my Hampshire drawl

______________________________________________________________________
about conditions in Kent,
______________________________________________________________________________________
about sticky wickets and muggy days
__________________________________________________________________________
and the monsoon season in Manchester
________________________________________________________________________
but fail to convince even myself.
_______________________________________________________________________________

The crowds loud busin drives me out

_________________________________________________________________________
skulking behind a tarnished rosette
____________________________________________________________________________
somewhat frayed now but unable, quite,
_______________________________________________________________________
to conceal a blushing nationality.
______________________________________________________________________________

Stewart Brown