The Rainmaker
Todd Wolbers
From breezeless bleachers, the sweat-soaked leaned toward home.
Somebody’s dad’s junk band beyond left-center held their strings.
One empty scoreboard frame. One last chance.
The batter—a red-eyed, steaming bull—dug in and stared down
his shaky rodent prey on the hill.
The pitch: Hanging meat.
Beachball eyes.
Ping!
A towering pop-up off a failed downtown swing.
Batter, bench, and families sagged with groans.
A hurled bat rattled and stuck high in the backstop.
A spiked helmet left a dirt crater.
Dust clouds trailed kicking and hair-wringing to the dugout.
The rising fly choked the July 4th sky,
buzzing around the hazy belly before getting spit out.
The falling rock glanced off an unsure glove
and landed on the crispy grass.
The ruffled slugger shook off the fog and stumbled
over scattered bats to get from dugout to first.
“Safe!”
Coaches ran to fan a sweaty umpire with rule books:
“He was out of the baseline! He’s out!”
“He threw his bat! He’s out!”
Torch-wielding parents, restrained only by a rickety fence,
heckled for the head of the old-timer behind the plate.
Blue removed his mask, dousing their fire.
The silence took a long drink of water and got a new bat.
The ump turned his good eye to the junk band beyond the outfield.
He sucked in a breath and barked, “Next batter.”
As the dampened masses staggered back to their places,
a few raindrops touched the parched infield.
From breezeless bleachers, the sweat-soaked leaned toward home.
Somebody’s dad’s junk band beyond left-center held their strings.
One empty scoreboard frame. One last chance.
The batter—a red-eyed, steaming bull—dug in and stared down
his shaky rodent prey on the hill.
The pitch: Hanging meat.
Beachball eyes.
Ping!
A towering pop-up off a failed downtown swing.
Batter, bench, and families sagged with groans.
A hurled bat rattled and stuck high in the backstop.
A spiked helmet left a dirt crater.
Dust clouds trailed kicking and hair-wringing to the dugout.
The rising fly choked the July 4th sky,
buzzing around the hazy belly before getting spit out.
The falling rock glanced off an unsure glove
and landed on the crispy grass.
The ruffled slugger shook off the fog and stumbled
over scattered bats to get from dugout to first.
“Safe!”
Coaches ran to fan a sweaty umpire with rule books:
“He was out of the baseline! He’s out!”
“He threw his bat! He’s out!”
Torch-wielding parents, restrained only by a rickety fence,
heckled for the head of the old-timer behind the plate.
Blue removed his mask, dousing their fire.
The silence took a long drink of water and got a new bat.
The ump turned his good eye to the junk band beyond the outfield.
He sucked in a breath and barked, “Next batter.”
As the dampened masses staggered back to their places,
a few raindrops touched the parched infield.
posted by toddw @ 3:54 PM
2 Comments:
At 4:21 PM,
toddw said…
I see that I have a phrase kind of like Max Garland's: "Somebody's dad's" like "someone's father". I think I read his poem after I wrote this, but who knows. We always used to say that as kids in high school back in Iowa: "somebody's dad has a camera" or "somebody's mom has it in for the ump". That way everyone would look in horror, hoping not to be related to the offender in question. My wife even gets me on that "somebody" tag: "'Somebody' left his underwear on the floor again." The phrase "somebody's dad" or "someone's father" gives that person a sense of relevance to the situation, not just any old guy off the street.
At 9:26 AM,
David Schaafsma said…
The opening in crisp, sharp. But I feel like it would be better in present tense, all of it.
--love the junk band! do like very much that it is "somebody's dad's junk band".
--i like all the baseball crowd lingo, like downtown swing
-- i like this poem for its specifics, its loving attention to language, its humor (abotu the ump, among others things)
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