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how did baseball first
arrive
in these southern worlds
and then return North
reinvented rich aromatic coffee dark fresh as rain
beisbol
before visas & passports
an Americano wading through jungle
under a panama hat
during gold rush daze or
aboard ship
unloaded at hazy evening dockside
flambeaux illuminated
clipper's crew on
drunken leave
swinging beer and denuded
banana stalk in jest
jostling warped dock boards
below bare feet running
to an imaginary first base
the game actually stops with each hit
(experienced fielders reminding a batter
who'd never played before
to...
RUN!)
imagine the thoughts
in the eyes of this first
Latino youth
stepping from damp shadows of a
curtained doorway
somewhere a baby crying at his back
striding toward
an unfamiliar sailor or would-be forty-niner
taking the makeshift bat (maybe a pick-ax handle)
in calloused hands
squinting at the blonde pitcher
summoning future spirits
Adolfo Luque
Minnie Minoso
Cepada, Cookie, Clemente
Carew, Valenzuela
rubbing the bat with such small hands
unknowingly molding the future
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