John Poff - "Baseball Sestina (for Enos Slaughter)"

An ancient North Carolinian broke off a plug of tobacco
And said, "When you get to the ballpark,
First thing you do is check which way the wind is blowing,
And then get yourself a good ball to hit." I took that native
Advice to heart, but it was years before I felt it in my hands.
You see, I rode the bus; he took the railroad.

The ocean is a whale-highway, but America is a railroad.
Many times I’ve crossed it, rolling my own tobacco
Into homemade cigarettes, cupping there in my hand
The eternal promise of addiction, a park
That’s beautiful, filled with hope and native
Flowers, but always just around some corner, blowing

Out of reach like this smoke is blowing
Across the continent. At ten I played ball down by the railroad.
The leather and dirt and grass and wood provided a native
Thrill. My dad sat in the stands smoking tobacco.
Did his thoughts ever run out past the parked
Cars, out to a whole world he once hoped to hold in his hand?

Once I hit a home run and the audience gave me a hand.
As I circled the bases, I felt the wind blowing
Across my every molecule. This was a new park
To be in, fantastic, like a railroad
To the sky. When original Americans smoked tobacco,
America was like this, something tremendous, a native

Splendor. That first home run is with me yet, a nativity
Scene enshrined in memory. If my wrinkled, weathered hands
Now shake, still I remember. Pass the tobacco.
Sometimes I think what was once me is now blowing
Far off, on the other side of the railroad
Where we used to play. A graveyard is also a park.

We drove all night to get to Cleveland and parked
Six blocks from the stadium. The natives
Rushed to sell us junk and we felt railroaded
By the ticket-takers. Still, through the prism of clapping hands,
I see myself there, one moment real, one moment blowing
Into nothingness, like a dream of Indian tobacco.

There is a park where natives and invaders smoke the same tobacco,
Where the sound of one hand clapping is known,
And where the wind blowing and the railroad whistle are the same.