Insistent in the Dusk

(Photo by Rebel Shea http://www.ttnmc.com)

by Bob Stanley

It was about this time of night, when the grey
fringes toward slate and trees become only shadows.
My father was shadow too, out between home and first
he was arguing with Konnie Knudsen and the umpire,
the same one who had just called the game on account of darkness.
The Stars (our team) had scored and gone ahead in the top
of the inning. Or tied it. Anyway I remember this grey
discussion: three grown men (maybe 35?) My father Paul,
wise mentor of the noble Stars, wearers of grey and blue,
voice insistent in the dusk, convinced the game should go on,
and Konnie, bright-eyed and bold, coach of the dreaded
Salvage Shop Seals, our arch rival in red and white, Konnie,
who would the following year become my coach,
teach me the humiliation of the blue nosed gopher,
bring victory and glory within my grasp so that I could never
rest without it. He moved me to first base at age 9, where
I would stay for 6 years, until I became my own mirror image,
and moved to third. Now three and a half decades later,
I still move quietly to that spot in the line of fire, and wait
for that late inning rally which will bring me all the way back.
And now I think I know what it was my father fought for,
and now I know how it was that they could be friends,
and share in the teaching of a young man, not only then,
shouting in the fading light the rules of a game they knew
better than themselves, but in endless repetitions of field and toss,
of step and swing, of wrist and hand and eye.
Paul and Konnie drilling deep into the heart of a life,
there is a reason that we fight for one more inning,
another chance to find out what will happen, before it gets too dark.