Cricket is my island’s most popular sport.
Many were the days when I bowled on the pitch,
successful in my attempts to make the striker miss.
Then, like a tree uprooted, my dear parents
brought me here to the United States, where
most of my new contemporaries assumed
cricket was some kind of diminutive insect.
They laughed at me and my accent
when I spoke of wickets with balls and stumps.
They asked why cricket players always wear white.
When I explained that anything less would be heathen,
they could not contain their uproarious derision.
I, in turn, could not understand their strange game
of baseball with its home runs, double plays and errors.
I asked my dear mother when we could possibly go home,
and she told me, sadly, we are here for good, make the best of it.
I promised her I would try, but my soul still yearns
for those long, lazy afternoons when the tropical sun
in its radiance bounced off our awaiting bats
and sweat poured freely from our glistening brows.
THE POETRY OF THE GAME