Recollections of Uncle Charlie

Far more than any robin’s arrival

the spring summons for bats and boys was always

the scent of Uncle Charlie’s old Deere mowing over

the reseeded carpet of our last summer’s dreams.

 

The red clay, winter-washed, sun dried, raked and limed,

foretelling of longer nights, shortening shadows,

the unmistakable announcement of our imminent

parole from the rigid blackboards, places, names

 

we scarcely cared to know, wouldn’t remember

much longer than the time it took to ink the page,

once the worm of ash and leather consumed

the few thoughts that weren’t named Hank or

 

Willie, Tom Terrific or Clemente …

To this day I couldn’t tell you what happened

in 1066. Whether it was Mary Queen of Scots,

or a haughty Marie from Austria, who said,

 

‘Let them eat cake!’ How Einstein reckoned

relativity, if Lear collected air miles or

had his own Airbus, were questions I’d never answer.

But ask me, how many hits Roberto had -- 3000!

 

Who was Al Downing? My memories of the fall

of ‘73 -- the Kid losing sight of a lazy fly,

Catfish and Seaver dueling through the sun

of a California afternoon …

 

Year after year, season after season,

the simple pleasure of a ball and stick,

pitch and wallop, has been the sustaining

curve of a life’s suicide squeezes, fair

 

weather divorces -- too many hit and run

markets’ meltdowns and mergers.

The infallible simplicity of numbers …

one, two, three, four, nine, twenty-seven …

 

the esoteric abstraction of who I might like

to spend an afternoon or evening with …

mulling over the state of the universe --

how in a perfect world we’d all be able to hit

 

a seeing-eye squib through the drawn in

infield for a Texas leaguer. Everyone

could trot home a winner. Nobody

would ever need to be the goat.

 

But that’s not how the game is played.

Life is how you manage your inning’s failures.

Do you wait your next at bat or

pick up your glove and skulk away?

 

Tonight, watching a hanging slur

disappearing into the twilight of a California

evening I think … we should ask Freddie,

seeing how Nestor’s already stalked off for home.

 

Ken e Bujold

Reviews

[W. Barrett Munn]

I have a book, The Norton Anthology of Modern Poetry Second Edition, and this poem would fit into that volume with ease.

[Ken e Bujold]

Thank you. LIke I said, rare than any poem comes this fast, and without reservations. Perhaps I should try writing while watching a game more often LOL