I held a purposeful golf ball in my hand:
it was alabaster and dimpled
near a garden of flowering Creeping thistles
with soaring black-backed Magpies.
Powerful and small the ball did appear,
a harmless looking playing sphere!
Because of its small size I did not guess
the awesome strength it surprisingly did possess.
Since I started playing this game,
with precision, heavy concentration and the greatest aim,
my verse rose in four beats.

Among the hills and island valleys of lush green lawns,
the only objects moving were the eyes of the golfer
surveying the putt analysing the land like a map drawn.
It was more than one mind involved
as a group of performers chatted in the trolley car;
after having a luncheon and leaving the clubhouse bar.
Perpendicular behind the ball looking for the line,
one of the guys then crouched for a second look
reading from his putting book toward the sand trap curved like a hook.
A golfer and his putter are one supposedly
as his putter and his putt in the goal
are one if the ball goes in the hole.
I do not know which to favour:
the loveliness of a perfectly struck putt
or the beauty of the green fairway at evening sunset!
I moved around behind the pin covered in dripping sweat,
as one of my partners took up a new position
from which to trace a path ball to the hole like an ignition.

“Fellow golfer, why do you imagine life like golf?” He said.
“Well don’t you see the difficulties of the putt?” I replied sitting in the grassy bed.
Par is always a good score. I know of noble efforts and of rhythmic swings
but I know too how to prepare for the next putt as the ball moves in a circular ring.
When the ball was still on the green, it only crossed over the edge
of the larger circle into the hole wedged!

I understood such a tiny ball,
with silence from the sacred wood on the terrain;
as I flashed my club sword, what more was there to explain?-
for leisure with this game of considerable antiquity!
At a distance of 200 yards with the group of acquaintances,
I played the ball with the smallest number of strokes
as the crowd drank their midsummer midday oolong tea,
the thunder’s rolling voice came with morning fog before the menfolk.
Light-hearted joy of the musing soul,
in a thrilling scene, I hit the ball towards its exact goal.
I took one lingering look, the longest look dexterously,
with profound notes in the site so nondiscriminatory;
and with a shadowy face, I glared at it in the distant sand.
I gripped my golf club to hit once more, pushing the ball at length classically,
piercing the target whimsically at the evening’s final toast of tea!