Brief History of Sport Poem by Glyn Maxwell

Granted that your guess is as good as mine
Here's mine. It happened like this in a vale in sunshine
Or moonshine. What it was was one was gone
Over the star- or sun-lit same horizon

Gone, one gone whom we fear, we being some
Who bide with our sheep and our sons in a land of some.
There was one long gone whom we fear, so a son we love
Went off in pursuit as fast and not fast enough
As he could, to the far horizon, was seen there
Hurling his spear at one long gone, we were out there
Watching him, he would hurry and hurl his spear,
Follow it, find it, step with it high and from there

Hurl it at one long gone till will please someone
Tell him? Still he's hurling his spear at no one.
Sticking a stick like a stake on the horizon
To build on, to build what on, wondered someone

As we carried his body back, he was as light as
A light on the horizon, he was fine as
We could frame the words for, we were delving
Deep for them, we piled them all then nothing

Over the hole we dug him, and we stood there
Three, we stood there three, and we were good there -
Or one was good, I should say, and you were better -
But I was best at wishing this day had never

Been, they brought me gold and you silver
And I sold it to live far from you, where over
And over the rain rains spears on the fist-thick panes
And your prayer is as good as mine unless mine wins.