1
The first bees of the season buzz the snowdrops
hanging their heads & staring at their feet.
My father plants his foot in the springy earth
& throws out the season’s first pitch, the ball
white as I remember the first snowfall.
His mitt, a Bill Doak model blackened by dirt
from the Thirties, fits him like a glove; mine’s
too big for me. As much a ghost as him
in time, I see myself a memory
in my son’s eyes as we play catch this morning
in our backyard, the new hardball his first.
2
I’m standing in my father’s shoes, ten years
older than he was when he raked the earth
for Little League practice, my sneakers black
like his. After forty years he’s still golden,
at home on the skinned infield the sun spotlights,
the center of a diamond-in-the-rough
as left & right he fungoes kids would be
bleeders. Each grounder that he hits kicks up
the dust he’ll be in ten years. The clock turned
forward last night, I’m stepping off baselines
five feet at a time for my son’s first practice.
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