Up before dawn
and out past dusk.
Fields of crops
traded for a field of dreams.
Well-worn threads shed –
replaced by a jersey.
Horse and plow
make way for glove and bat.
The milking and the tending await the morning,
while the sound of bat on ball and ball in glove greet the night.
Farming is sustenance
and baseball a game.
One at the mercy of forces beyond control;
the other, governed by rules: three strikes – you’re out.
Both part and parcel of his life –
ground on which to root, to grow.
For when he takes the field, he’s home.
THE POETRY OF THE GAME