They needed no preamble,
no anthem,
before they were off again.
The hack of bat and ball,
as if sound had just been created
for the first time in Baltimore.
Two girls more excited by the cheers
than anything else,
save for the hot dogs and bases loaded,
when you explained what that meant.
When they tired of the game,
of the peanuts mixed with broken shells
under their feet,
of the lemonade turned sticky and warm,
they squeezed closer to you,
pulling your arms across their shoulders,
and napped at the seventh-inning stretch.
Older,
their lives were a series of first-ons,
bases loaded, doubles, triples,
and the final push past third—
one, a Nike in Nikes,
the other slower, yet surer of the path,
running the long crooked lines
away from home.
Your weakened body —
now, a runner on third — you called plays
from where you sat on the bleachers,
squinting over the field to
gauge distances from here to there,
tracing the bases and brilliant lines of light,
waiting for blue pinstripes of dusk
and the what that comes after.
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Comments: 25
All there...the senses filled with baseball and the fixings that come with it.
Past to present, double entendre with relationships and varied paths
I'm hungry for a hot dog now.
Featured with nostalgia on Poet's Weekly Muse!
How I've hungered for one of your poems...Thanks for this wonderful taste of Baseball.
I finally finished it, after spending some time with my niece, who is going off to college this week. I know it needs a few more stanzas to round it out, but it's a good start.
Love your profile pic! And thanks for inspiring and reading!
xxx
Would you consider sharing with Gather's Best?
On my Twitter account today.
(This comment is a bit off the topic, perhaps, but your third stanza does describe two different life strategies.)
Karen
A blessed rest-of-weekend to you, too!
Oh, good grief! You're not ignorant of anything!
I'll be grateful for cool breezes, which should be coming through Virginia sometime in October!
xxx
a
Blessings ~
Rene
I've been a stranger to these parts for too long!
ron
their lives were a series of first-ons,
You developed this and often dared your own intuition on the tightness. But this is brilliant. It should be as it is.