Lost Souls

Lost Souls
by denny

There's an old abandoned baseball field near my home
Where I go to hash out the problems in my life.
I sit amid the worn empty bleachers,
full of muted voices and watch
Games long over on lazy summer afternoons.

Baseball catches in my craw like a cat with a fishbone.
I played as a child, got my virginity ripped from my soul
By a baseball coach who long ago missed his chance
And took his vengeful retribution out on each of us.

I watch the ghost players upon the dusty field;
Well worn gloves a size too big on hands half grown.
All the young boys that played and are now long gone,
Dreams of the big leagues gone in wasted lives

At this empty stadium in miniature
A lone crane has taken up residence, a lonely sight.
I think his mother found herself far from the flight path
Had to deliver her overburdened womb prematurely.

Thus he reminds me of myself, born somewhere
Other than the place he was intended to be, a pariah.
At dusk he swoops in to land on the old batting cage,
The only contender on deck, waiting to eye the pitch.

His long slender neck makes an elegant curve.
He stretches upward, eyes left and right, and preens.
Now motionless, head turned into the wind, eyes stoic
He stares forward as if to ask some eternal question.

I do too, and I feel a keen solitary sense of empathy.
This refugee from the coastal climes is me with wings.
I would fly but never will, this land holds me fast,
Damned as I am to die in this God forsaken place.

So I will desiccate in this arid landscape.
And my winged friend will wonder senselessly
Why he was born in this ballpark.
The game long over, three outs and two left on base;
He on his batting cage, me on this bench.