You take, easily, what the others seek.
In fact, you make them look half-asleep.
You are like quicksilver – a time thief.
Your glorious exploits bookmark the week.
Like the rest of us you must talk, eat –
a mixture or cliche and modesty.
On the dreaming field, you're a deity.
The white football is a world at your feet.
On this planet of ours much is wrong –
too much violence and stupidity.
It all vanishes when you play for us.
Your game is like a beautiful song.
It banishes fear and cupidity.
You are no satyr, you are Orpheus.
Explanatory note: this poem came from three main sources. The first was Wayne Rooney's extraordinary overhead kick goal, scored on the 12th of February, in a game between Manchester United and Manchester City. The second was a reference on a radio programme to Rilke's sonnet sequence devoted to Orpheus (I had never heard of these poems before). The third was subliminal. The radio was softly playing as I slept, fitfully, conveying the infamies of the world on the BBC – Christians slaughtering Muslims, and vice versa. All three congealed in my mind, in some lines and rhymes. I wanted to write a sonnet. I have not used Rilke's form but, crudely and inexpertly, that of Petrarch.
