April 8, 2011: Getting Away with It, Jack Gilbert
Getting Away with It
Jack Gilbert
We have already lived in the real paradise.
Horses in the empty summer street.
Me eating the hot wurst I couldn’t afford,
in frozen Munich, tears dropping. We can
remember. A child in the outfield waiting
for the last fly ball of the year. So dark
already it was black against heaven.
The voices trailing away to dinner,
calling faintly in the immense distance.
Standing with my hands open, watching it
curve over and start down, turning white
at the last second. Hands down. Flourishing.
==
More baseball poems, in honor of Red Sox opening day:
Baseball Canto, Lawrence Ferlinghetti
Jackie Robinson, Lucille Clifton
Root root root for the home team, Bob Hicok
Heaven, William Heyen
Distressed Haiku, Donald Hall
On this day in…
2010: *turning, Annie Guthrie
2009: I Don’t Fear Death, Sandra Beasley
2008: The Dover Bitch, Anthony Hecht
2007: Death Comes To Me Again, A Girl, Dorianne Laux
2006: Up Jumped Spring, Al Young
2005: Old Women in Eliot Poems, David Wright
