Sunday Morning Ball

A spearminty Sunday early morning. I awake with sad songs on the clock radio and a bounce in the air. I am torn up bodily by softball dives and slides on gravelly ground and apply salve and apply bandages to the most tender places. I am hungry and ready to run and swing and whoop, and maybe win a championship, maybe not. There will be a cookout in the high sun of late morning, the celebration of a season with a new group of guys, guys I've come to like, goofy and competitive, fiery and fiesty and ready to laugh at themselves. They love music and the cousinhood of jam shows, which reveals itself in the dugout and in encouragement on the field. I am not juiced enough with sleep, but I'm rested and ready to breathe the cool, squint into the blue gold sun, win a game in the morning, eat some grilled food, and then figure things out, maybe walk up high again, maybe just read, maybe just write, maybe just trace the big circle.