Poetry

Poems That Relate To Me



Before the World Intruded by Michele Rosenthal

Return me to those infant years,
before I woke from sleep,

when ideas were oceans crashing,
my dreams blank shores of sand.

Transport me fast to who I was
when breath was fresh as sight,

my new parts — unfragmented —
shielded faith from unkind light.

Draw for me a figure whole, so different
from who I am. Show me now

this picture: who I was
when I began.

  How to Play Night Baseball by Jonathan Holden

  

A pasture is best, freshly

mown so that by the time a grounder’s

plowed through all that chewed, spit-out

grass to reach you, the ball

will be bruised with green kisses.  Start

in the evening.  Come

with a bad sunburn and smelling of chlorine,

water still crackling in your ears.

Play until the ball is khaki—

a moveable piece of the twilight—

the girls’ bare arms in the bleachers are pale,

the heat lightning jumps in the west.  Play

until you can only see pop-ups

and routine grounders get lost

in the sweet grass for extra bases.