The school sports day,

a yearly ritual in which evolved

over the years from spoons and eggs,

hard boiled, once glued, often dropped

on the dangerous gravel or if fortunate perhaps

 dog littered grass,

sometimes obliterated

and tears and tantrums flowing soon after

 as someone never finished the course, to

complex games

 of hierarchical displays of ever growing

hormone driven adulthood.

If wet, held indoors

or simply delayed a day or two,

to frustrated parents dismay

and then the crushing pain of unprepared running,