“The Old Game”

By Donald Hall

 

“The old game waits under the white,

Deeper than frozen grass.

Down at the frost line it waits

To return when the birds return.

It starts to wake in the South,

Where it’s never quite stopped.

Where winter is a doze of hibernation,

The game wakes gradually,

Fathering vigor into itself.

 

As the days lengthen in late February

And grow warmer, old muscles grow limber.

Young arms grow strong and wild,

Clogged vein systems, in veteran oak and left fielders both,

Unstop themselves,

Putting forth leaves and line drives in Florida’s March.

Migrating North with the swallows,

Baseball and the grasses’ first green,

Enter Cleveland, Kansas City, Boston.”