Alan Marshfield
Long Distance
We started in a pack on a level head
of the downs. Sky Leather. Underfoot,
grass flashy like the harbour wet below.
Five or ten clubs. Ten, twenty lads from each.
The front line full of goers with an itch.
Behind the die-hards who would have a go,
not there to win. Take me, surprised
I had six miles in me, pleased
if I came not too far in the rear.
Pleased to be elemental, fit enough
to pass someone sometimes and not to loaf
uphill too slowly. Felt good to be in key
with all those odds and sods, the thick and quick;
and mucking in with my own pain, the slog
through lung-burn, trip-ups, cramp. We’d do
this sport for earthy honour. Add to that
the flagellating twigs and a flint’s bite
at blooded ankle. A man could feel and see.
By second wind I’d be with instant friends
who jerked at my own pace, exchanging grins
like squaddies sniped at, lobbed in the same stew.
That was in ‘fifty-one. We had no wars,
just Saturdays. We’d jog along for fifty or more years,
unlike our granddads. For them not twigs: barbed wire.
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