In memory of Christopher Martin-Jenkins, by Adrian Buckner

For CMJ

 

It started for me in '71: rumours

of an Indian with a withered arm

running through England at the Oval -

"Chandra" , the conjuring, chantable

abstract of Bhagwat Chandrasekhar.

 

The following June,

my ear to a radio with batteries wearing down -

Boycott taking Lillee's first over after rain delay.

I ran back to school, wondering

about bad light, an early lunch, a seamer's paradise.

 

From that moment, it was all epic to me.

You confirmed it on the page:

 

England Expects you wrote

when Boycott stepped out again

to open at Port of Spain

 

and when he mis-hooked Boyce

with only six on the board

the ball hung in the air for half a page.

 

"The book I refer to in line 13 is Testing Time which CMJ published in 1974 after England's tour of the West Indies. I was 12 at the time and read that book at least a dozen times." AB

'For CMJ' was published in Adrian Buckner's Contains Mild Peril (Five Leaves, 2008)