A Poor Innings

I watched the mayor's indifferent black
car glide through the gates,
while directing pupils' late parents
towards the 'Old School' hall,
where the debate competition
was taking place:

A parent paused to glance at
the flowers mounting by the
railings in a pile,
for the Year 9 girl whose
name was erased from the register
and the photo with the smile
on the database removed
that morning as she'd passed away with
out warning.

The bustle of this, final,
coupled with the unexpected loss
and the Spring blossom on the trees
and the sunlight on the breeze
create a queasy sense of brevity
to everything of beauty.

The cricket team draw up in mini-bus
a disparate clump of boys clad in angel
white dragging bats and bags and deflated feet
up towards me, recounting tales of defeat.

"Half their team were semi-pros," they
groaned and blinked away a victory now
postponed; "We got slaughtered - they bowled us
out with fifty runs to spare..."
But in sun, their sorrow soon fades,
too young for despair.

They set up wicket on the front lawn
as they wait for lifts, ignoring my friendly
warning, bowl a ball straight into the
thicket of bouquets for the girl now called out,
dislodging cards proclaiming loss and love,
while the speakers mount the stage to
persuade the judges to part with their prizes.