My brother Scott Cervine is a film-maker and editor, and did a short film based on an old poem of mine entitled, The Lawn Bowling Incident. You can view it on You Tube, at:
The Lawn Bowling Incident, on YouTube
Check out Scott's films at MOVIES FROM THE HEART website: http://www.moviesfromtheheart.com/
The Lawn Bowling Incident
The grass of the lawn bowling green
lay sleepy as cows under midday sun.
Retirees in white hats, white pants and skirts
leisurely chat in clumps like cotton
awaiting harvest, now and again rolling
a solid black ball small as a large fist
toward the jack on the other end of the green.
Perched on a bench opposite the green,
the hypnotic rotation of the ball lulling
me roll by roll into reverie, I muse
that there is a difference between
spending time and passing time.
It is as though in spending time we become
a tight-fisted man pulling a wad of greygreen bills
from our front pants pocket, unhitching
the gold clip, and paying off the various demands
on our time and attention.
Time is metered out, rationed, allocated –spent.
Even with our children, our mates.
Especially with ourselves.
In passing time, the world slows enough
to hear the clink of ice-cubes in the lemonade glass
on the front porch railing, the lazy creak
of the swing as it sway back and forth,
the smell of anise and lavender in the yard.
This kind of time is like a stick in a river,
lolling on eddy and current, circling,
given over to the flow of what is larger and wider
than itself.
Opening my eyes at the sound of a sharp click
as to a hypnotist's finger-snap,
I see it is a black lawn bowling ball
hitting against another.
The sea of white clothing and gentle smiles,
so unlike the turbulence of the government
center next door, draws me into its slow tide.
I rise, confused for a moment as to which way to go,
where I am supposed to be. My feet under me finally,
I begin to walk down the path, past the open gate
of the green, and into the grey building adjacent.
But along the way, I wave towards the lawn bowlers
and make this promise:
to pass as much time in green as I spend in grey,
and to learn to slow down the lawn bowling way.