I’ve been a lifelong archer, and while I love football, this is the sport that I’ve practised, and which has been a vital thread running through my life.
It is an end of three poems because we archers shoot in ends of three arrows. It is based on the feeling that time, like a target, is circular (the clock face, the spheres of the earth and sun that create our days.)
Rainbowed clocks conflate this reference – a gold, red, blue, black and white target face as a clock face. The muffled knocks refer to the sound of arrows hitting the target, as heard from distance, and stuttered rhyme is the sound of bows being shot at different moments but sounding the same. The references to eternity and arc encapsulate the timelessness of archery – the essential similarity of archery over the centuries, and the arc of an arrow which gives the sport its name.
While the first poem tries to capture the mystery and timelessness of archery, the other two speak to the transcendental nature of the sport and its camaraderie.