Games Children Play

Aris and Tate

 

The games we played in childhood

made to ready us for our life

The fleet foot breathless soldier

forged to mimic our daily strife

 

These lessons turn round and round

with the sweet spinning of a child

Taught so that we may never forget

to make a man of the meek and mild

 

Somewhere between the child and man

we forget sometimes the reason

Why children love to play these games

as varied as each new season

 

The happy chimes of the baseball field

like notes from far flung rain

Carry us back to our childhood

reliving the laughter and the pain

 

The giddy chatter across the field

lofted high on the drifting breeze

Echo our life's fear of failure

wishing, if only time could freeze

 

We find much more when we lose

of just what we are made of

Discovering the test of character

that all good men so love

 

In life it's not the ones who condemn

nor win most times they play

It's friends who forgave our weakness

whose spirits echo through our day

 

 Aris

Author's Note

Haven't we all thought back to the moment we were up to bat?
With the weight of the world on us we then struck out.
Baseball is the national sport here. It is the only sport to have a commissioner all powerful who is in charge of guarding the integrity of the game. In 1919 the first commissioner Judge Kennesaw Mountain Landis was elected to the lifetime post to combat the cheating that the White Sox had done in the world series. Even though all were acquitted he banned them all from the game for life saying "No player who gambles on the game of baseball or sits in conference with others who do and does not tell his franchise will ever play the game again." He added "What these men have done is to plant a doubt in the minds of every school boy who ever looked up to them in awe. Baseball the great leveler of men from all walks of life. They have violated the founding principle upon which the game is grounded. Forever taking away the innocence that comes of a child's sense of fair-play"!
The White Sox were for years then after refered to as the Black Sox!

Childhood:
Softened by Times consummate plush,
How sleek the woe appears
That threatened childhoods citadel
And undermined the years!
Bisected now by bleaker griefs,
We envy the despair
That devastated childhoods realm,
So easy to repair.

Emily Dickinson

Reviews

[Hope Wilson]

i love this peice

[Ishgnu]

As a mad keen sports girl in my youth, I can relate so easily to every line in this poem. Does it teach us to accept the failures in life as well as the honor? I believe so. So perceptive and wouldn't it be nice if we remembered these things more readily when our children are faced with challenges of their own? Stepping up to bat and standing in the spotlight is a risk we must take everyday. We don't always strike the ball but when we do, it's worth everyone we missed. :)

[SM Davis]

Your imagery here is nicely portrayed. It truly brings about the loftiness of our childhood memories...while looking upon the perceived reality of our children's.

[LonelySoul]

no greater healing power than that of children laughing while at play...nice work here my friend

[E. A. Fielder]

this reminds me. C.A.B.S. and his family took me to see my first baseball game last month. I felt it was quite entertaining because one person got hit with a baseball bat and one batter was hit with a ball. While I know its wrong to find enjoyment out of others pain I thought it was interesting because I had never seen those things before. C.A.B.S. brother was shocked that my mom had never taken me to watch baseball when I was little. while this might sound like it has nothing to do with the poem it really does. I liked baseball and soccer when I was a kid but the only time I was able to play it was in gym class. My mom never signed me up for sports. So My imagination was always my childhood game. I guess this poem just made me think alot about my childhood. I really liked it a lot it really brought back a lot of memories for me!

[VioletRose]

I remember playing I played till I broke my elbow and then quit and then two years later I was 10 and I said
"Mommy...sing me up I am playing ball again this year!" I loved being up there and feeling the pressure and the heat the pitcher gives you! O wow those memories I forgot...not that I have retired from the sports and took all of my faith I had playing on the feild onto the stage! Wow I sure miss Baseball!

[Joy Lynn B.]

lol I remember playing thousands of games like that!

[Ecros Lathes]

yes we all remember those days :) I also love Emily Dickinson.