Diamond in the Rough
 - for David Huddle -
 
 
The red clay infield is a bowl scooped by winter’s play,
baselines banked, keep the runner from broomsedge
and blackberries—the pitcher’s mound is a mud hole.
 
Sunday afternoon congregations flank home plate,
lick ice creams and bless each error. They Amen
the leftie as he pours too much sweat into his knuckle ball--
sliding by the praying catcher, it fouls the chicken wire backstop.
 
The young batter gains confidence, a strike-out unlikely,
chews his tobacco like a bull conjuring clover,
but the truthful curve must come to this rookie
striking in him the hope he can sparkle for girlfans forever.
 
Will this buck dream again or pull that ball just fair,
and do those homerun woods creep closer each year?
Bases loaded, he curses, spits.  The plump popcorn girls
flinch with a certain contentedness of heart.
 
The count is full when the crowd hears the crack
somewhere behind their expectations, of thunder.
But in this ballpark there are no rain delays, two outs,
and sacrifice the worst of possible strategies.
 
originally appeared in New Virginia Review (the print parent of Blackbird)                                                           

​

Kudos
 
 
The angry sun
bleaches late afternoon,
a flicker wings under a mileage sign,
                        as I drive
interstate to a funeral
of a woman I’ve never met,
the dusty jacket credits
                        vaguely familiar.
Cruising the winter piedmont
            snow-fields are the palimpsest
                        for animal lives,
strange notions relieve the miles.
 
                  *
 
Twenty years ago,
                        when picnics by the lake
            were my dating forté,
I thought we made
                        our own realities.
Girl friends would leaf
through the dedicated poems, sipping
            wine, myself lying
on the blanket, sunburned
            with desire.
                        Yet
drifting toward evening
            of unrequited argument
we were liberated by polite
            Goodnights.
 
But I remember those girls
                        each with a dream,
each a manuscript I could read
but could not
edit.     

Now through bristled mountains I see
with clarity
            of experience,
I see their faces are more beautiful
            than ever they were up close.
They have written rhyme and reason
            for these blank days.
 
                        *
 
The call woke me two nights ago.
Yes, I would cancel
            my appointments and see her off.
He must have thought I
was an old flame.
                        But
I am alone, Coke and candy bar, driving
            to a place I’ve never been.
I will see, at least,
            the old college friend
and we will
                        speak kindly
of his literary dead.
How the flowers bathe her in color
            and we will turn to the window
as if the room were suddenly empty.
 
                        *
 
The evening smudges
            the landscape, nocturnal
                        eulogies glitter
            from distant farmhouses.
                        But
an owl’s forbearance
            is all I can muster, mile by mile,
the headlights of my car,
my only field of vision.

originally appeared in Old Red Kimono