Slow pitch, under the lights.
The late game
On a Tuesday. The sound
Of kicking cleats
As we shuffle in with leather mitts
And aluminum bats.
Texas humidity drips
From dusty jerseys
And sweats our cold cans
Of beer.
We spit, mostly seeds,
Clap hands on backs
Or pound fists
With a nod. The older ones
Stretch, while the younger
Ones adjust their gloves
Or check their bats -
Like soldiers before battle.
We are the boys of summer...
And it is time
Again
To PLAY BALL!
We are still young,
And everything is possible,
In this moment.
To hell with what says
The world. You and I,
We,
We are immortal.
They give me comfort,
These books, and my journal
Too. The way they sit
Upon one another -
At acute angles
With varying degrees
Of use. The way their pages feel
Against sweet cigar scented fingers.
They are compliments
To my iced morning coffee,
My glass of evening red, even
The occasional afternoon
Manhattan; an alternate ending
To nights otherwise
Predestined.
Poolside beneath a crystal blue sky;
Shaded by sun dried oaks. Overhead,
The sounds of the summer cicadas;
The ebb and flow.
We sit, in patio chairs, around a patio table,
Lightly peppering each other
With patio talk.
Between workplace war stories,
And celebrity gossip, I thumb
Through the collected poems
Of Raymond Carver -- his life
Summarized in time lapse form
Through his poetry...
Poetry born in two story farm houses
Outside of small Northwest towns,
With names like Naches, Wapato
And Toppenish;
Poetry carried along by rusted
Ford flatbed trucks,
Loaded high with bales of hay;
Poetry swallowed down
With a stiff glass of whiskey;
Poetry stained with divorce,
Marred by abuse and plagued
With guilt; Poetry redeemed
In the quiet moments
Of the early morning;
Poetry wrapped in the mystery
Of a fogged-in river gorge;
Poetry making its way upstream,
To the source,
In hopes that what still may spawn,
Within all of us,
Within the soul,
Within all of us... Is salvation.
