A Sonnet for your Tartan Bonnet.

I know that Mairi Mhor nan Oran bashed out a poem or two about shinty : Sorley had a go too when he wrote about the Portree high School team of 19**. The Kaid bashed out a rhyme or two. If I recall his subject was the international match in the 1920s which was played at the Tailteann Games in Dublin. Any number of old rhymes exist about shinty also by Anon.
So here goes, in honour of National Poetry Day:


Shinty Sonnet No 1 : The Free Hit


The forward squats over the ball
palms light on the club, feet wide
apart. Runners peel off to the side
break , return, steal space for the goal
strike which must come. No free hit
is direct: not much in shinty is.
Nor much in life either. All this
physical celtic knot work helps fit
an ancient Gaelic rhythm. The man
on the D improvises a flick:
the Centre unhindered slips his stick
under the cut back ball and with one
gesture of his wrists, guides it high
into the net ,making this stick-poem fly.