02-19-2014, 05:08 AM
A Preferred Lie
Of all the places I’ve never been
and all the people I’ve never met,
these yards of water and grass
still connect me; it was you, father,
who taught me how to play the game.
Being here with you so many times,
and again, alone, last summer, dewy
mornings broken by cleated shoes;
no matter how years end,
your game remained a closed stance,
a gentle draw off the tee.
Aside the green was a hand pump,
long since removed, water taken
from the Chippewa River, clear
and cold, seamless, almost invisible;
it was always the water, left of the green,
in front of the green, the swell and flow
of the river, that held us together.
I don’t brood much about score,
with all its work and walk,
golf is the only game; returning
to #4’s tee box five years after your death
is like a stroke of cold grace; among the call
of wood doves, I’m a man-child waiting
by the water, knowing it’s only a slow turn
away from your different kind of life.
Of all the places I’ve never been
and all the people I’ve never met,
these yards of water and grass
still connect me; it was you, father,
who taught me how to play the game.
Being here with you so many times,
and again, alone, last summer, dewy
mornings broken by cleated shoes;
no matter how years end,
your game remained a closed stance,
a gentle draw off the tee.
Aside the green was a hand pump,
long since removed, water taken
from the Chippewa River, clear
and cold, seamless, almost invisible;
it was always the water, left of the green,
in front of the green, the swell and flow
of the river, that held us together.
I don’t brood much about score,
with all its work and walk,
golf is the only game; returning
to #4’s tee box five years after your death
is like a stroke of cold grace; among the call
of wood doves, I’m a man-child waiting
by the water, knowing it’s only a slow turn
away from your different kind of life.