A piece of land if cleared

will provide a suitable setting:

a pig's or sheep's bladder leather bound

secured with stitches

can be fashioned into a facsmilie of the globe

made to fly above the ground

or propelled along it

by the agency of human intervention

 

that will be the intention.

 

There will soon arise a system of attack

and defence whereby the bladder

(now called a ball) will be projected

into opposite frames marked out

as in an imagined stewardship of those areas

by opposition penetrated.

Two groups shall evolve

marked distinctively by colours,

will combine in the aim of conquest

 

by mutual request..

 

Great store will be set by this activity,

skills of subterfuge and skirmish displayed

in the manipulation of the so called game.

Crowds will gather all inflamed with passion;

the moneylenders shall come,

reputations made,

male bonding,

a code of morality.

 

All shall worship the humble bladder

which formerly served a fine and godly purpose

now a transmutation into beautiful sport

and variants thereof

to carry their own history,

and the love of it shall be passed down

from father to son.

 

There will be much resistance by womenfolk

who mostly will stay behind closed doors in denial

of this savage but glorious pursuit,

nevertheless it shall spread like the plague

from town to town

country to country

and in the mouths of men

whose allegiances will be unbreakable

their disagreements unspeakable,

and great flying contrivances

will inhabit the skies to the sound of guttural cries,

and the consumption of the devil's brews

 

and all will be right with the world.