Swing

I'm overdue for a blog entry and too busy to think of anything original so here's a poem I wrote a while back. You can also find it on www.coffeefaucet.com.

(Disclaimer: My dad has NOT been diagnosed with cancer. I know that makes this poem seem kinda dark, but I wrote it after hearing bad health news about family of other people I know. I started to imagine what they were going through...)

“Swing”

All of life is in the swing of a bat.
That’s what Dad taught me,
pointing to players and stances
too far away to see while he held my Coke
so that I wouldn’t spill.

In a sense, life is all physics.
The ball is wound tight,
stitched with knotty, red twine
and hurled at you with speed.
The bat is hardwood –
sanded, polished, solid and heavy.
There’s a pitch and a swing
and life is ignited in the material.

But in another sense, the batter swings supernatural.
With rhythm, timing, momentum, strength, hope.
Toward the mystic union.
The critical time, the living part of the swing,
is in the instant that contact is made.
The hands feel the shock that reports that
they’re alive and they’ve arrived
at the right moment.
The pitch is fast and the crack violent and stunning
so that it feels like the bat should shatter or fall
helplessly from the hands and the pitch continue
on its ripping course.
But then the weight of bat and arms and the strength of hands and hips
carry forward faith until,
as quick as that,
the course is changed
and the bat swings away wide
and shoulders open to the field before them
and eyes look up to a sky of clarity and possibilities.

Last week, Dad’s doctor said “cancer.”
The pitch was fast and, for a moment,
I wondered if he would strike out.
He seemed to swing free and I expected to hear the pitch
forever sink into the padded mitt behind him,
the chances gone.

But then the bat shook
and hands and hips carried forward faith until,
as quick as that,
the bat swung away wide
and shoulders opened
and eyes lifted.

And all of life was in the swing of a bat.