April 2015
I am a retired business-to-business PR and publishing professional residing in northern New Jersey with my wife and son and a shrinking menagerie of merry pets. I began writing poetry (not very well) 100 years ago as an undergraduate at Georgetown University, where I earned bachelor's and master's degrees in English Literature. My poems have appeared recently in Contemporary American Voices (I was the Featured Poet in the January 2015 issue), the Wilderness House Literary Review, Blue Monday Review, and Atavic Poetry. In 2013, I celebrated (mostly by smiling a lot) the publication of my first poetry chapbook, What Comes Next, by Finishing Line Press. A lifelong Giants fan (New York and San Francisco), I still can't believe I lived long enough to see them win three World Series in five years. If you'd like to see more of my work, please click on http://www.whlreview.com/no-9.4/poetry/JamesKeane.pdf.
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Author’s Note: The poems posted here are addressed, respectively, to my grandfather on my mother’s side and to my father, both of whom have long since passed away – my grandfather, when I was three months shy of nine; my father, when I was 35. “Grampa” was inspired by a thankful memory from long ago; “A New Picture,” by a photo of my father as a much younger man and the regret I feel, when viewing it, for the way things turned out for him. In addition to being two of the most important men in my life, both shared their love of baseball with me. Since baseball has a place in each of these poems, I am happy to share them not only to honor National Poetry Month, but also to celebrate the first month of the new baseball season. For those reasons alone, how can April ever be considered the cruelest month?
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Grampa
Though the park was a stilled green canyon
between me and every other kid,
and the snowy distance slowly gaping,
stretching this barren afternoon
from me to you grows duller
though deeper,
what I truly remember
is the sudden shriek
my chubby invisible brother overdid
and, though refraining from discovering
the still, dulled speck
a distant man
might prove to be, knowing
I must get close and see.
And somehow, eagerness growing so happy,
I was running, sprinting
overlooking
what on other distant days I would know to be
not just grass and dirt (and a shield
against my brother), but
the outfield and the infield – still and
radiant, I will see, quiet with afternoon
purity – one ever mindful
of the other.
But on this other distant day, when
the dulled speck waning
in the stillness of discovery
was me, silently you waited
in muted gray,
under a summer tree.
And when I did get close, as dark-eyed
as your smile could ever be
it glowed, in radiance
by resignation subsided
to a grinning joy
graciously awaiting only the tender
unwrapping your fingers,
slowed by stroke
to silenced motion nearly mustered
for a bobbing-eager
little boy clutching, barely
touching
the silence your silenced
resignation in the end
surrendered, smiling, for one final
radiant notion, eternal
and true:
Quietly, your stilled arms warmly
enfold the outstretched
paper package forever
embracing you, cradling as ever
one sound new baseball glove
and sturdy bat,
then two
and always the memory
embracing me is the laughter hugging
me and my brother to you, smiles rising,
a speck of joy
swelling to a tear
in your gleaming grin,
a distant afternoon
relenting to discover
your gaze of undying love
I truly remember.
A New Picture
I had to look at it twice before
I knew the shadow radiant and
fleeting was the boy
who never grew to be
you. Lean forever,
a flannelled figure looms
in the gloomy majesty cloaking
the offended dignity, perhaps,
of a dead ball New York Giant, stuck for
all time in the Roaring Ruthian Twenties. But
suddenly the simple radiance of a boy
overshadows all gathering
gray – a lithe form tapers
a drab uniform when simply
no one needs a custom fit
to play. In his own beaming way,
he has stung the ball to screaming
away any sullen rage the silent men
behind him, appraising him, might
nurture to threaten the radiance joyfully
at play on this one day. Dad, your brooding
anger grown mad (colder yet sad
I never grew to know), came finally
undone a lifetime to the day radiance
embraced your shadow
like a son, till they beamed as
one with the gathered
gray on the lone
joy eagerly your smile, dying
in delight, will always know: a baseball
is in flight, and you lean forever
to grow.
Credits: “Grampa” and “A New Picture” were previously published in my poetry chapbook, What Comes Next (Finishing Line Press).
©2015 James Keane