There’s no silence like the silence of a huge crowd,

a great beast holding its breath, intent upon

two figures it has curled around,

its gaze focused now on one play, now the other

on their separate stages.

 

Then a cry of appreciation as people stare at the first,

marveling at the beauty of that dismissive gesture

            — downwards

                        diagonal —

an arc that foreshortens space,

the ball slowing like a planet’s tiny progress

across the brilliant blue of the court’s face.

 

At the other end, as it watches a hobbling player,

the crowd’s uneasy murmur echoes the hot breath

of what lies in wait in the darkness above the floodlights,

the camera slung in its web.

They feel that something in the world is powering down.

His gait is less tendinopathy than the choreography

for life’s thwarted plans.  As if he’s facing the Fates across the net

he shakes his head, bewildered.

 

The brother-gods of tennis reign over domains

secured by the double outline of their borders.  On one side

a lyric chaos rules beyond rules,

the god of wilderness dreams, his self forgotten

and become one with the crowd who are released

in their celebration.

 

On the other, Fate’s hand works through drop-shots and aces

with the precision of a theodolite.

In that dream which acts upon him, the player is alone:

he is star, opponent, umpire and referee.

 

Both players, in their way, surrender to the moment,

the dreams and intoxication of set point, tie-break, match point.

Energy ebbs and flows from one side to the other,

so that at any one time, no-one can tell

 — not the crowd, not even the players —

which stage is which.

​

Last Stanza Poetry Journal Issue #20, April 2025