There was a time

There was a time

I thought there might be golf

I would spend time on the greens

Walking, talking, driving with an iron

Or some such thing

A niblick comes to mind

Although from whence I do not know

As that dream was over

Before it truly began

Too much time spent

Beating in the rough

Marking a card

Wasting time on the inconsequential

When making a connection

Was the essence of the hunt.

Caught a Trout

And couldn’t kill it

Big round eyes

Accusing me of murder

Before I could wield the blow

And threw it back

Before its time expired.

Nothing escapes me

About the nature of bloodsports.

Life has a way of finding you out

Even when the truth is kept hidden

Among the books

You never read

But promised one day you would.

I opened a book on Monet

A tumble of

Pressed flowers fell out

And I remembered

Picking them up

From where they had fallen

On the ground

Next to the wooden bridge

In Givenchy.

Purple Irises

They still carried the aroma

We were as happy as children

Finding treasure

Spiriting it away

Between the pages of a big fat book

For me to find

Some twenty years later

When the memory

Is accompanied by the aroma

Of a garden

Made in heaven

And I don’t miss golf

At all.