Play BALL!

Today's poem comes to mind each year as  ice-encrusted winter months start retreating and I resume walking past those ball diamonds waiting for crowds of kids ... or would-be kids ... to return.

It also comes to mind with the onset of nippy nights and chilly mornings ... a reminder that the things of summer will soon be put aside while we search for the leaf rake ... and the dreaded snow shovel.

I like to store away sunnier memories ... something to tide me over in less inviting times, weather-wise. 

What better memory than a sun-drenched ball park?

There's one ball park in particular that holds a certain fascination. I guess it's because there's seldom anybody else around as we go strolling by.

I do pause there ... sometimes approach the backstop, and my fingers do grip the wire mesh like "some abandoned vine" ... while I think of days long, long ago, when I actually ran the bases a few times.

There's still that momentary urge to try it again. But I'm a little smarter now ... and a lot slower ... and I never do.

The poem:

Play BALL!

Standing behind
the sagging backstop
at the deserted field,
my fingers gripping
the wire mesh like
some abandoned vine,
I'm tempted to go
tearing around second,
sliding into third
in a cloud of dust;
instead, I linger
a few moments more,
enjoying the quiet, 
just imagining that
roar of the crowd.

© 1998

(originally published in Capper's)

Today's word: sagging

On Waking

I grew up in hill country, where fog was rather common. I still identify waking up, the beginning of the day, with fog that lingers in the valleys.

It's something like the fog that lingers in my own head ... beading on the cobwebs there ... but that's another story.

Meanwhile, today's poem:

ON WAKING

The dense gray fog, that

silent stalker of valleys,

crept in like a dream

while we slept, lingered,

defying the sun's efforts

to take back this place

where the sassafras shares

a hillock with honeysuckle,

outdoing the dew itself,

globules riding a coolness

that speaks of changes

coming, a shift of seasons,

a briskness that will make

the covers more precious

in the morning, gentle fire

like a warm embrace when

evening brings us home.

© 2001

(originally published in Waterways)

Today's word: embrace

Night Echoes

How vivid the memory is of those trucks "grumping and rumbling" in the night.

I don't recall exactly when it was, but I remember being bedded down for the night in a motel at Terre Haute. Then I heard them. It sounded like a parade of trucks, although there weren't nearly that many ... and there wasn't exactly a steady stream of them.

I recall getting up to take a look. There was a single, huge dump truck grinding past on the highway. I don't recall which highway, but It seems to me that it was a north-south route.

I went back to bed.

The trucks kept rolling. It wasn't a loud noise, but it seemed persistent ... and it seemed that there was just enough of a grade in the road, right beside the motel, that their grumbling ... all of them ... increased right there as they shifted to a lower gear and went on climbing the hill.

I got back up ... jotted down my impressions ... and went back to bed. And really slept then. Oh, did I ever!

The poem, which later became part of my first published collection:

NIGHT ECHOES

Mud-laden trucks
grump and rumble
outside my room,
hauling mounded
loads of quiet
down the highway,
letting it spill
in the darkness,
come rolling back,
thunder’s echo
muffled, distant,
washing across
this emptiness
like surf crashing
on my pillow.

© 2003

(originally published in Chance of Rain, issued by Finishing Line Press, 2003)

Today's word: crashing

Moment

Only once in this lifetime have I experienced the sensation of a butterfly settling onto my hand.

I'm sure, as a child, I must have dreamed of such a thing, without ever really expecting it to happen. It was like lying on a hillside, looking up at the clouds, and imagining what it might be like to fly, literally fly, above them ... something to speculate on, but not to be attained.

Then there I was, an adult ... a very tired adult ... sitting on a hillside far from those amid which I did so much of my early dreaming ... and there was a butterfly ... sitting on my hand.

Had I known then what a haiku moment was, I would have declared that to be one. Instead, I simply sat, transfixed, watching, waiting ... and finally squinting to follow its path as it departed.

I suppose some will read into the poem a feeling, not just of the butterfly's departure, but of loss, too. I prefer to think of what I had gained.

And so it has been with the visits of those who stop by to take a look at "Chosen Words."

Then the crowd moves on. There are other journals to visit, to explore, to evaluate and comment on.

It grows quiet here.

If I were to read "Moment" aloud now, I might be the only one listening. But I would savor the words ... I would read them carefully ... and I would recall the heat of that day ... the sun ... that butterfly ... just as I am now looking back on the past several months, savoring the words you have left with me.

As I continue reading your words in the days to come, I will remember ... your thoughtful comments ... the kind things you've said ... and I will think of all I have gained from your visits.

And I thank you for all of that.

Meanwhile, the poem:

MOMENT

The butterfly sits so lightly
on the back of my sunburned
hand that I barely feel
its tiny feet clinging, tongue
tasting the essence of me.

I sit stone-still, watching
as it clings, seeing its tongue
uncurling to taste, feeling
my breathing subsiding
into the rhythm of its wings,
folding, unfolding,

sit savoring the reverie
attending the encounter with this
being that has flown to me
like a tiny fleck of fly ash,
but has chosen me, the most
unlikely of choices, and keeps
sitting here while I consider
whether I might seize it.

Then, as though sensing
my intentions, it lifts lightly
off, flying raggedly, majestically
across the sun-swept field,
perhaps pursuing a search
for someone more worthy,
leaving the weight of absence
pressing my hand.

© 1999

(originally published in Vincent Brothers Review)

Today's word: majestically

Let Them Try

Another poem about writing, the concentration it demands ... and the distractions which intrude, especially if the writing is being done in an attic room -- er, studio -- and the squirrels are playing games overhead.

Before we had our maple trees trimmed, our roof seemed to be a favorite gathering spot for those rascals.

It sounded like they were having squirrel conventions up there, or the Squirrel Olympics, maybe even doing some line dancing, although I couldn't hear the music, just those little feet, back and forth, back and forth ... back and forth ...

Oh, there were moments of quiet ... I suppose while they were choosing up sides again ... plotting their next moves. During these suspenseful moments I could get a few words written. Then the commotion resumed.

As I recall, my first draft, instead of talking about "teeny-tiny feet," said something about "obnoxious little feet," but I mellowed a bit after that.

In the quiet that followed the trimming of those overhanging limbs, I guess mellowing was to be expected.

Oh, and I purposely kept the lines short ... in order to underscore the tension of writing under such pressure.

The poem:

LET THEM TRY

Squirrels go
trickling across
my green roof
while I write,
trying to break
my concentration.

Hah! Let them
try. I am so
focused not even
booming thunder
could faze me;
certainly not
this constant
pitter-patter,
pitter-patter,
pitter-patter,
pit of their
teeny-tiny feet.

© 2001

(originally published in St. Anthony Messenger)

Today's word: pitter-patter

Inscrutable Scrap

(Again, the photo has no direct relationship to the poem ... just something that caught my eye when I was out walking)

I have this thing about thrift stores.

I find it difficult to pass one without going inside.

Once there, I have trouble getting back out without buying something ... at least a book. At the very least, a book.

Aside from the story the book may have to tell, there are other stories, too ... a note on the flyleaf from the person who originally gave the book to someone else ... marginal notes, sometimes ... underlined passages ... a bookmark indicating a favorite portion ... or where the previous owner stopped reading.

All of these are dividends, I think. I'm curious about people and their reading habits. I like to "know" who the previous readers were.

Then, in this one instance, I got an extra dividend.

When I got home with my "prize," I noticed a bit of brown paper ... like a tiny piece of a grocery bag ... peeking out from the book.

I pulled it out ... and discovered ... and, well, that's what the poem's all about:

INSCRUTABLE SCRAP

A scrap of paper
jaggedly torn
from a husky brown bag,
held prisoner
by the dusty book;
a frayed finger,
beckoning, pleading,
it surrenders
its shakily-penciled
long-lost message:
I LOVE YOU
but keeps its
secrets, too, like
who wrote it, and why
had she kept it
all these years?
© 1995

(originally published in Midwest Poetry Review)

Today's word: secrets

Hope Renewed

Today's poem reminds me of the good old days, way back when I was putting together a free, weekly e-mailed newsletter (anybody remember that version of "Squiggles"?).

One of our annual rituals was a countdown toward spring.

It was not unusual for it to begin with the first frost in the autumn, struggle through the gray days of winter, then go marching toward brighter, sunnier, warmer ... growing ... days of spring.

This poem also reminds me of a time when Phyllis and I shared a sleeping room high under the roof of the house, where the sound ... the music ... of rain was so soothing, so reassuring.

Though I can't hear the rain thumping on the roof now, the sound of it slanting against the bedroom window is still a pleasant interlude, a reminder ...

The poem:

HOPE RENEWED

Spring rain

thumps on my roof

as though testing it

for ripeness,

and in the sunny

back yard of my mind

I see red roses

blossoming again.

 © 1994

(originally published in Capper's)

Today's word: blossoming