Baseball Poem

– Old Timer's Day, Fenway Park, 1 May 1982

Donald Hall, U.S. Poet Laureate

When the tall puffy
figure wearing number
nine starts
late for the fly ball,
laboring forward
like a lame truckhorse
startled by a garter snake,
– this old fellow
whose body we remember
as sleek and nervous
as a filly's –

and barely catches it
in his glove's
tip, we rise
and applaud weeping:
On a green field
we observe the ruin
of even the bravest
body, as Odysseus
wept to glimpse
among the shades the shadow
of Achilles

Fathers Playing Catch with Sons
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0865471681/poetsorg-20/
002-5217827-1679236?creative=327641&camp=14573&adid=08JM7ZJ
ZFGQ1Q258X4D7&link_code=as1

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/061853721X/002-5217827-16792
36?v=glance&n=283155

About the new US Poet Laureate Donald Hall, avid Boston Red Sox fan.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/14/books/14poet.html?hp&ex=11503
44000&en=1aca3b325c00a10b&ei=5094&partner=homepage