July 2, 2010

destiny

On the lawn at front of the house I grew up in,

my brother and I played endless innings of baseball. A rock lodged

in the soil became first base, a round edge of new garden

was second, the slim trunk of a young tree mutated into third

and the well-worn patch where we stepped up to bat

doubled as home. Our summer was full of fast pitches and wild swings,

the thwack of the ball sailing over low shrubs, the victory sprint

along our makeshift diamond. This morning, retracing those barefoot runs,

it was the garden I was struck by, not nostalgia. Now a million shades of green,

it rose, disobedient with lushness, like a destiny I hadn’t hoped to believe in.