Tomorrow waits for me.
I lag behind, eyes shagged by a baseball game.
The game plays itself out before the fireplace.
Piñon, aspen, pine burn and crackle.
Firelight mixes with moonlight.
The Wrigley Field of my youth displays itself.
The shadows of ballplayers move
in miniature, upon the illuminated diamond-shaped tiles.
I sit alone
and not alone as Billy Williams
tracks down a ball hit into the right field corner
and throws it to the cutoff man.
I see you, my pinstriped Cubs. Nineteen Sixty-Nine
is so young and full of promise.
Tomorrow taps me on the shoulder.
I look up, ready to go forward,
knowing not even my imagination
will stop the amazing, miracle Mets.
copyright © 2019 Kenneth P. Gurney
POSTSCRIPT
Twenty-Sixteen refers to the year the Cubs won the world series for the first time since 1908.
I grew up a Cubs fan, mostly because the Cubs were on a TV channel our set received. My mom, who grew up a White Sox fan a few blocks from Comiskey Park, was annoyed by my choice.
Billy Williams (not Ernie Banks) was one of my childhood sports heroes. I have a poster of him on my wall in my writing studio (aka: poetarium), along with a picture post card of his plaque in Cooperstown
.
