{ bee + spool }

A Baseball-Wedding Poem for Matt and Cheryl

To the uninitiated, baseball and marriage
go together like a cheese dog and a boat of garlic fries.
Mothers, physicians and even your college buddies know
that whether they go hand-in-hand
depends on time and a healthy constitution.

But wisdom and truisms are only fuzzy language
echoing out from spectators and season-ticket holders.
Here, within the framework of a diamond,
atop ceremony that we may liken to the easy slope
of the pitcher’s mound,
are two players Most Valuable.

This morning, like a baseball sewn,
you are two lovers joined–
each situated alongside the other
like two new and supple patches of leather
stitched together by sturdy, even threads,
a new world, a self-enclosed planet of your love thereby formed.
And the game begins.

The stadium lights are brilliant stars in your night.
The ball is the extraordinary sphere of life,
the naming of it you will henceforth call “our life.”
The fans, in all of our jubilant cheer and adoration,
await the pitch, its speed, the kiss of ball to bat,
the sound of its crack a commencement
of a flurry of hearts beating, our anticipation, a hope
that the ball takes flight, sails out, out
past the farthest reaches of a known and measurable field,
where it might come to a graceful landing–
scooped up by caring souls,
placed into the soft cup of a mitt worn
by love and time, given the tenderest of care
to come out to play again the next day, the day after that,
and all days.