A Game of Catch
May 6 2016


A game of catch.

Once the frost subsided
and the puddles dried
and the matted grass had greened.

Except not really,
because in games
there are sore losers, bad winners
good sports,
tests of will
and keeping score. 

Sun-warmed arms, that could use some colour
pinking-up,
blinking
like prisoners
released from their cells.
A gentle breeze
as pungently sweet
as freshly thawed soil.
And air so soft
after winter’s steel
you find it hard to believe
in living as easy as this.

The give-and-take, the back-and-forth.
The overhand lob
performed automatically.
How muscle memory
calculates everything
all on its own;
the physics 
of the ballistic arc,
moving targets
rusty arms.

The tightly wound ball
at the top of its flight.
An infinitesimal pause,
when all the forces 
cancel out.
And wouldn’t it be something  
if everything stopped 
right there,
as we stood and watched
awe-struck.
The world
in perfect balance
held by a thread.

But the world moves on, the ball is caught.
Back and forth, back and forth
in its own marvellous way;
an easy toss, a seamless catch
as thoughtless as taking a breath.

This is a poem about that first nice day, warm sun, a desultory game.

We wish for the miraculous, transcendent, ecstatic. But there should be gratitude in the every-day. The complexity of a game of catch, for example:  the high physics the brain accomplishes unconsciously; the fluency of muscle memory that is lost as soon as you actually pay attention.