77. Test [100 poems challenge]

77.          Test

A battle titanic is starting to brew—
A challenge between long-time foes;
And each in this trial would like to outdo
The other, and vict’ry impose.

Though combat is fierce, it is true that for some
The rules are not well understood,
But each side fights, knowing they dare not succumb …
And all for an urn of burnt wood.

Attack and defence rages on without rest,
What prowess each player displays;
But everyone knows the observers’ real test
Is can we watch this for five days?!

11 July 2013

Comments: I’m not quite sure if this works as well as I wanted it to. I wanted “test” to at first seem to be just a word used as a synonym for a challenge, and then to have the remaining two meanings become apparent later. Those of you from certain countries may have no idea that “Test” is also the name of a sporting competition for the sport of cricket. Cricket is a game kind of like baseball only totally not, and has rather complicated rules and some quaint if not outright inexplicable terms (for simplified rules see here). There are short versions of the game, but “Tests” last for five days (unless a result is achieved before then). The most famous tests of all are those between England and Australia (and one was taking place as I wrote this poem), and the best of five series is known as “The Ashes”, because the symbolic trophy is a small urn purportedly containing the cremated remains of a bail (part of the wooden wicket, which is a thigh-high structure that a bowler aims for when bowling (pitching) to the batsman), so created to lament the death of English cricket when they lost to the colonials back in the 1800s. I suspect cricket is an acquired taste, and it helps to grow up with it. I quite like it, but I have to concede that there can be some boring moments in five days.

Themes to come: 78. Drink; 79. Starvation; 80. Words; 81. Pen and Paper; 82. Can You Hear Me?

Explanation about the 100 poems challenge here.