A Facebook Memory: Fall Ball

A friend recently commented that, despite having posted lots and lots of silly stuff in her early days of Facebook, she is now grateful for the "memories" offered, as they remind her of who she once was. I, too, am often surprised, pleased, shocked, or embarrassed when I encounter my own Facebook memories. "What the hell was I thinking?" is often my response to something I posted in 2009. And in those early days, I must not have known how to post a picture, so all I have are my words to paint a picture of "who I once was."

Yesterday, a Facebook memory made me stop in my tracks and reflect not only on who I once was, but who my son once was. The "memory" was a poem I'd written when my son was off at college, far away, in time and distance, from the young boy that I'd raised. It was a memory of his years as a catcher on a baseball team, a vivid and bittersweet memory for me. While the other kids on the team usually had both their moms and dads (and sometimes grandparents) cheering them on, my son had me. His father died when Sam was ten. I loved watching Sam play baseball, but the sadness I felt that his dad wasn't there was never absent.

Ask any credible poet which of his/her poems is a favorite, and the response will often be, "The one I'm working on now." Poets are harsh critics of their own work, and the exhausting construction of a finished piece renders it to the archives, far away from the current and future work. But let enough time go by, and the poet will often experience the same sentimentality that Facebook users encounter when reminded of their past posts.

I will unabashedly admit that I still love this poem that I wrote all those years ago. It has the power to take me back to a place that, sadness aside, is a place of love and survival and promise. It has enough color and sound and imagery to evoke a time when I did the best I could with the hand I'd been dealt, or at least that's what I'd like to believe. I hope my son believes it, too.

And so, here it is:


Fall Ball (for Sam)

At first, I think it's horseshoes,
that plink of metal on metal.
Until the sound roars up from memory
as something more intimate, more dear.
Fall baseball. It's the sound
of a hard-packed sphere meeting
an aluminum bat. Plink. And then
the muffled yells from all those
parents. And once, not so long ago,
I was one of them. As always,

September grounded in
like Virginia Creeper, non-threatening
at first, then suffocating summer's reign
with a red insistence that defies fair play.
I can harvest the crookneck and butternut,
sauce the tomatoes, celebrate the turning
leaves. But how do I call back autumn's
real beauty -- a boy in catcher's gear,
intent on the call, poised for whatever
comes his way, even if it happens to be
the future?