Sunday, Free Play Soft Ball league enjoyed a funny game amidst: the mildness of early autumn, the goose shit, the late rolling ballers.
My ‘worst ever since 1970’ hitting slump continued, yet, because I can play all fielding positions in a mediocre manner, I pitched a scoreless inning. Lost a one run game–that is a win in my book.
Never will you reach that silver mountain which appears, like a cloud of joy, in the evening light.
Never can you cross that diamond of dirt which treacherously smiles at you in the morning mist.
Every step on this road takes you farther away from home plate, from flowers, from spring. Sometimes the shade of a cloud will dance on the way. Sometimes you rest in a ruined caravanserai seeking the truth from the blackish tresses of smoke
Sometimes you walk a few steps with a kindred soul only to lose him again.
You go, and go torn by the windy disputes about what actually happened, burnt by the sun, and the shepherd’s flute tells you “geese have flown”
until you laugh no more
until the puddles in the grass is only your dried-up tears which mirror the mountain of joy that is closer to you than your mitt.
apologies to Ms. Schimmel, for this version adapted from:
~Annemarie Schimmel ‘Nightingales Under the Snow’ Variations on Rumi’s Thoughts
