Here’s a poem out of a book that a close friend gave to me a few years ago. The book is Diamonds Are A Girl’s Best Friend: Women Writers on Baseball, edited by Elinor Nauen, and it is a collection of stories, poems, essays, and memoirs about baseball written by women. I love the layers of meaning in this piece.
Baseball
When you tried to tell me
baseball was a metaphor
for life: the long, dusty travail
around the bases, for instance,
to try to go home again;
the Sacrifice for which you win
approval but not applause;
the way the light closes down
in the last days of the season–
I didn’t believe you.
It’s just a way of passing
the time, I said.
And you said: that’s it.
Yes.
I like it too. There’s one blogger I know of that writes with layers of meaning too and it makes their posts very interesting as well.
Writing like that is fun to contemplate and reflect on. Glad you like it!
that’s fantastic or realistic the way it teases you with uh oh here comes another esoteric over the top baseball allusion and then wham, it’s just about killing time. i hope to find this book you reference on woman baseball poets.
Yeah, the complete defiance of the reader’s expectations is pretty great. Baseball, and life, are all these things — and yet, in the end, the passage of time is the ultimate accomplishment.
Hello and Thank you for liking a post. I like your poem. Good Ol’ Baseball it’s an American sport:)
Thank you for stopping by as well! I wish I could take credit for the poem itself, but those kudos go to Linda Pastan 🙂 It’s definitely a fantastic piece!
wow! silly me:) Sure was cool;) Have a nice morning. .Now thinking of Baseball I an hungry for cracker jacks and hot dog and remembering the ol Baseball song..