POEM - Only A Game

On warm nights like these America speaks
To children with the language of baseball.
There is a song in the way that a ball
Travels sixty feet, from mound to home plate;
In the solid thud of leather as ball
And glove meet - intent and result as one.
In how fast the sound of ball on bat moves;
In dancing runners who follow chalk lines;
In high arcs of fly balls to the outfield.

This is a game of tightly strung moments –
Like fine diamonds on a necklace which test
Our faith in the heroes we come to watch;
Little moments that are knotted to youth
The way the webbing of a glove is tied.
Two on, Two men out, bottom of the ninth –
Down by one run, and a three and two count.
We fold these moments up like ticket stubs
And place them in the wallets of our hearts
For safe keeping, for all time, to evoke
The most sacred prayer that we can muster;
The most intense wish that this simple game
Can make each one of us simple again.

M C Biegner
7/2005