Upon the Thirthieth Anniversary of Hank Aaron Surpassing Babe Ruth as All-Time Homerun King
       

The sky opened in the ten minutes it took to fete
Hank Aaron after he hit #715. Hank says time
paused as he was rounding the bases: the college
kids patting him on the back between second

and third might as well have been gnats or rain-
drops . . . O, the rain! Who was the first to think
the unthinkable?—Wait, if this gets called, do we
go back to 714? Tomorrow is another day, indeed.

Hank, the Buddhists say it is raining everywhere.
The greatest Zen masters proclaim their impotence:
I cannot be a good Zen master; I have seen good Zen
masters. As for me, I can't be a good homerun hitter—

that's no false modesty. Some things we just can't
do. But I've seen a lot of homeruns, Hank, and now
I suspect each one is nothing special, a single ball
socked into the night. Yes, they can be washed off

the books, even the momentous ones. Nothing
to do but wait and see if what we've seen is real.
We sit in our hard bleacher seats, hold the breath
we share. We stare straight up into the spitting sky.

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Copyright © 2015 TJ Beitelman All rights reserved
from Americana
Black Lawrence Press
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission