The Second Inning

with apologies to WB Yeats

Spinning, twisting, the curving ball drops to home plate.
The catcher can’t see the signs from the coach.
Anarchy is loose upon the diamond.
Even the best can miss the ball
while the worst lets it roll between their legs.

Surely the Second inning is at hand.

On a mound of silt and sand
a foot kicks up the clay,
the ball grinds into the hip.
The thunder thighs, the barrel arms,
the sneer upon his face.
Over head the reeling buzzard speaks

“Vincit qui patitur.”*

Somewhere the shadow clouds build up in the west,
roiling the horizon, bubbling golden in late afternoon sun.
The thunder beating the drums on top of the cumulonimbus incus.

Surely some run from 3rd to home is about to happen on the sacrifice fly.
The runner executes a slide to homebase
stirring the dust to dark shadows,
the ball slumping to the backstop
to be born again.

*He who endures, conquers.