Baseball Sonnet Half a Century Later

Baseball Sonnet Half a Century Later

Bheka Pierce

My fourth lonely week of college freshman fall,

Feeling small and out of place amid the bustle and pace

Of all those vocally assertive New Jersey people,

A shocking form of culture shock so far from the grace

And soft silence of my surrounding New England

Hills and the reassurance of the maples, and the view

Of the steeple and the statue on the common green,

So that it seemed I’d been mistaken to come so far from home.

Outside our dorm, he flipped the horse-hide ball into his glove;

So that somehow I in a moment of courage asked, “Care for a catch?”

“Wouldn’t mind,” was his reply, almost Yankee short and clear.

For a perfect hour or near, not much talk at all, just chucking the ball,

Leather slapping with easy satisfaction against leather,

The muscle flex, zip, snap, shallow parabola of a friendship formed.