Wednesday, May 16, 2007

The Double Play

Robert Wallace (b. 1932)

In his sea-lit
distance, the pitcher winding
like a clock about to chime comes down with

the ball, hit
sharply, under the artificial
bank of lights, bounds like a vanishing string

over the green
to the shortstop magically
scoops to his right whirling above his invisible

shadows
in the dust redirects
its flight to the running poised second baseman

pirouettes
leaping, above the slide, to throw
from mid-air, across the colored tightened interval,

to the leaning-
out first baseman ends the dance
drawing it disappearing into his long brown glove

stretches. What
is too swift for deception
is final, lost, among the loosened figures

jogging off the field
(the pitcher walks), casual
in the space where the poem has happened.


ozzie smith

4 comments:

dan said...

goin' to Moab till Sunday so posting early.

Unknown said...

Why does the pitcher seem so detached?

dan said...

maybe because while he's pitching, he's the center of everyone's attention, but his own. To do his job he has to concentrate on his target and ignore everything else.

Anonymous said...

what do u think the theme of this is? Why do you think the author wrote this?