The Baseball of Poetry

Grip the words firmly in your glove

Feel the stitching with your hand

Now suck in the pitched air

Focus on the space

Between the catcher and the plate

There is a shape of space

You must curve or slide or hurl

Emotion packed pitch of verb

Rhythm and control

Rock back and throw your leg

Feel the muscle of meaning

Unwind

As you trace a line through space

And connect with a place and time

Timing is everything.

Emotion, execution

You bridge the gap

You give the batter heat

With a singing snap

And feel the rightness of the pitch

The batter anticipates

You hear

Mountain ash smacking leather

The sweet spot meeting

And the afternoon has meaning

Hits runs innings outs

mark the passage of time

Walks bunts runs slides

Syntax for reaching home.

Diamonds of green, players and team

Nostalgia for the order of rhyme.

Baseball season, figurative reason

Picture of

Order and control

The legacy, the legends

The practiced ebb and flow

Epic age- old patterns

Every poet yearns to know.

By Suzanne Popp