by Mick Murphy
Thomas Eakins
Baseball Players Practicing, 1875
Watercolor on paper
Museum of Art, Rhode Island School of Design
For Robbie
You tidy up,
as in a boys room,
moving the earth around.
Dirt and small bits of stone
the rakes passed over.
Sins of omission if
left untended can cost you
the game.
Your pitcher’s crease
is lamb white, your heart
the same.
Yet unmarked by the spikes
of the enemy.
Your arms are supple and
ready under home
cotton whites.
Your glove new leather
oiled and shaped the night before.
You love our summer game.
But they come, the people from
the world, and you have to pitch to them.
Mick Murphy is astudent of Amy Holman at the Hudson Valley Writers center in Sleepy Hollow New York. A former business executive, he has studied and written poems for many years. His work looks at personal and spiritual issues and the intersection of these with the life of his generation. He lives in the Hudson Valley of New York. He also writes about sports.