The Contestant's Anxiety at the Tossing of the
Caber
by Alan Catlin
From
afar, as seen over the heads
of
spectators seated in low bleachers,
this
wavering pole makes no sense,
impelled
forward by some unseen
force,
then lifted, launched, hurled
furiously
or dropped, suddenly, without
ceremony,
a dreadful weight relinquished,
unaccompanied
by applause or appreciation,
but,
rather a collective, groaning,
a
gasping gradually diminishing until
the
post appears again and the ritual
is
repeated.
Watching,
closer, at one with the crowd,
the
process contains a reason, a method;
you
can see the contestant bent at the waist,
large
leg muscles fully flexed, great arms
encircling
the pole's girth, back rigid,
straining,
facial muscles taut, expression
intent
while the clasped hands slide down
the
tapered wooden base of the pole,
anticipating
the lift, the fearsome jerking
upward,
the awkward balancing, shifting
weights
composed for the act, equilibrium
maintained
prefatory to the dread march
forward
into the field of play.
A
perfect toss approximates high noon
on
an imagined clock facing, upon which,
no
real shadows are cast.
~
first published in Opossum Holler Tarot
