Tag: eleven

For one day only

I thought I’d have some fun with numbers
today, (or is it 2day?), 11.ii.21, one month,
ten years after 11.1.11 when we launched
Headway with an image of one by one
forward-peering, prowed-standing pioneers
coupled for growing enterprise like two sides
of a coin, one complementing the other,
one complimenting the other, tied and tethered
in affection and imagination. One by one,
the perfect team, the first eleven,
the prime number no one can divide.

So it is, the perfect eleven, the perfect spell,
vowel, consonant, vowel, consonant bound
in rhythm marching time, beating heart time,
one two, one two, two one, one by one partners
like Noah’s passenger list and those first gardeners.
There is a second eleven, the mourning break,
the eleventh of the eleventh, when we remember
the one who stood with one and fell, along with
all the fallen ones, tragically flat lining
when one stood against one as betrayer,
the twelfth man making even eleven odd.

©David Herbert, 11/2/21

Headway is the title of a leadership programme I have been involved with.