After the last five years,
We conclude it might not matter
Who the next Prime Minister will be.
Each incumbent as bad as the last.
Yet another day in heaven
Where Sounds of Iona resonate in
The Western Isles handicap at Ayr
And bounce of Fingals cave like a
Thumbprint in the hot weather haze.
We travel the Ferry in the company
Of Biden’s Americans and walk
With heavy golf bags (prior to a
Slog around the mediaeval course)
To pay respects at the gravestone
Of John Smith, the Prime Minister
Who never was.
Pound coins and painted stones
Adorn the burial ground and
We think of local MP Mhairi Black
Who we’d hoped might step into
The empty shoes.
Later, imitating the hookies and niblicks
Of Vardon and Ouimet – combatants in
The greatest game of golf ever played,
We hike up a hillock
Sidestep a bullock
Hit soaring woods
And delicate mashies
Through bramble and byre
To make a better ball par three
On the hole with no green
Just a simple white flag surrendered
In a copper cup
And realise from that and from remembering
What Vardon and Ouimet,
Smith and Black
Went through to etch their lives
In our memory
That it certainly does matter
It really, really does.
.
© Gary Boswell 2024
.