the night before the game

by Leslie Norris

When night comes early and darkness
fills the streets, all the way
from the cold road past roofs and chimneys
to the colder stars, he takes
his tennis ball to the circle of light
beneath the street lamp. And begins. He taps
the ball from one foot to the other, walks
it about the iron standard, patting it
with deft little directives of his shoes,
never letting it out of his easy reach,
as Con Holland had taught him.

Now he is trotting, the ball
two smooth inches from his toes,
never getting away, never breaking
the rhythm of the circle
around the lamp-post. And he
dances after it, swaying from side
to side, feinting with hips and shoulders
so that imaginary tacklers sprawl
behind him, and the little
grey ball veers minutely
in its steady circling as he steers
and strokes it.

‘Be in control,’
Con Holland had said, ‘Keep the ball
with you, protect it, push it and pat it,
left foot and right foot’.

So he runs around
in the ring of light, a small thin boy,
until his running is automatic and the ball’s
response is to something other than his feet,
something different, a sudden unity,
a harmony, like happiness.

Knowing he can do anything,
he pounces two-footed, traps
the ball between his feet, throws it
a yard in front of him, and lofts
its bounce head high, holds it a moment
on his forehead, allows it to drop
to his lifted thigh, pause, and fall,
soft as a mouse, to the ground.
He repeats this again and again, until
it is perfect beyond anticipation.

And goes home.




Although it is dark
he can almost see his white shorts
folded on the bedside chair, with
his new stockings. His shirt, red
with gold sleeves, is on a hanger
behind the door. He is straight
and calm in his sheets. His bed
is flat as a field.

‘Be aware’, Con Holland had warned,
‘of every man on the field. Protect
the ball, move it safely. Know
where everybody is. And best of all,
know the spaces between them.
Keep the ball until you know those spaces.
Push the ball at exact speeds
into spaces your men can run to fill.’

Almost asleep, he imagines the green game
in the morning, how the ball will roll
into the spaces between his friends,
intricately connecting them,
a web, a moving thread of playing.

And on the touchline fathers and brothers
and people who leave their cars
to watch boys play soccer, they too
have their spaces, move into them,
shouting their support.

And behind them are the spaces of their homes,
the places they work, the places of traveling,
all to be filled, people moving at exact speeds,
all intricately connected.

Arthur Ferguson,
who’s gone to Australia, there’s a huge space.

We are connected,
he thinks, turning into the warm darkness,
we are all the same.





I adore, love, and admire this poem. For one, I'm simply in love with true football. Also: We are connected. We are all the same.