A Game of Golf

This free verse poem is written in the form of a letter to my two young children who were on holiday and in the UK without me.

Listen to: A Game of Golf

Dear James and Thomas,

There’s an upside to being here alone,
I have time to learn to play golf,
but there’s a twist to the local game
that’s born of poverty and culture too.

Tribespeople are drifting from villages
in the central highlands to the coastal plains,
looking for work and a place to live.

For want of anywhere to stay
they’re building ramshackle settlements on open land,
and one such camp runs parallel to the fifth fairway.

The sun is harsh. By mid-morning it’s stinking hot,
there’s little shade, no services and no water,
even the greens are brown.

The men have made primitive firearms,
and roam in vicious gangs to attack
and rob other tribes—of which we are one.

They do it as a means of survival,
but I’m sure
they’ve a good sense of fun as well.

When I tee-off at the fifth,
I’m joined by a pair of security guards
who accompany me as far as the pin.

My guards are from a local tribe,
and armed with crude bows, their quivers full of arrows,
more eager than competent, I suspect.

Small groups of squat tribal-scarred men
emerge from their makeshift huts
to stare and gesture at me.

We’re divided by more than the chain-link fence
that separates me from them, their hostility,
and the assumptions they’ve made about me.

Their poverty, our cultural and absurd differences
in wealth, seem symbolised by that useless fence.
It reminds me of Berlin, and I feel guilt.

Am I at fault?

I mull over how their poverty might be relieved,
but I can do nothing about it,
except bend over my ball and hack it down the fairway.

In that respect, I’m no different to anyone else,
but I hope you grow up to question
the value and wisdom of fences.

Please tell Mummy if the gunfire starts,
and arrows are arching overhead in reply,
I’ll concede the game.

I miss you all,

Your Daddy.

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