Snow and ice

2008 is looking a heck of a lot like 2007: it's snowing. They're calling for 15 more cms.

As I no longer play shinny and don't live anywhere near a pond or field, and as Jan 1st has become a day to play an outdoor hockey "classic" in Canada (or Buffalo, close enough), here is my contribution to the national festivities.

HOCKEY
For RCL

The pond polished and framed in piled snowbanks

Like a cherished family photograph;

The carved interlocking geometry

Of memory and youth frozen in ice.
Your first skates are forgotten, but never

The aroma of leather damp and worn,

The numbness of bare earlobes winter-chilled,

Forefoot pinched by lace, heavy thighs
Like hunks of meat packed into stiff wet cords,

Wobbly ankles taped straight, the bent stick, knobbed,

Propping you up slipshod like a scarecrow,
The game makes fools of us, a joke of gods.
Having witnessed the split-second glovehand

Save, you know full well how spells are cast,

Spectacular, oracular, it appears time itself

has been mastered by the net-minder,

Masked kabbalist, anonymous ritualist,

Stoic and precise, whose gestures utter

Secret names, conjure the possible from the improbable.

And drawn out in lines, curves, flights, telemetries,

You glimpse the fluid blueprints of nature,

Shielded by the games seamless design,

Tribalism, brutality, impulse: The puck

A capricious lover, is ever in motion, careening,

Cavorting, refusing to be possessed, disloyal

And always the center of attention

As the jilted players, men hot with appetite

A wild jealous bunch scrimmage,

While the child watches from the sidelines, wanting

Only one thing, to be good enough

to be counted in.