The Call to Prayer, in Early April

There is a moment after I’ve turned on the radio
In the quiet, before the announcer moves us all along into the action
When the crowd claps, and you can hear a stray holler—
someone yelling “peanuts," perhaps—
And that small space of almost-silence, within the crackle of the crowd, becomes a prayer—
An imprecation of something great, just bound to happen
As sure as baseballs will sail the air

They are miles away, on a field in a city sitting prettily by a great roll of water,
And this day is the very hope of spring, with fingers now rubbed warm
This day is us, after the storm
And those watching are, like each of us, always coming home

Between me and all those sitting in that great temple,
Are endless creeks and hills—
Woodlands and hollows and fields
Getting ready to roil in summer heat and August’s pitiless humidity

There are children running, still, after all these years, to a swimming hole, in untethered glee

And places that no foot will ever touch,
In the hidden and unseen sanctuaries of the world, unspoiled

That short snatch of silence holds it all—
The possibility of finding still the sudden surprises which reveal
What we were looking for, all along
So that baseball become more than sport:
Becomes our humanity, and what it means to be, as we rise endlessly in spring

For now, we can pretend that all lives play out happily, if we do not look too closely,
And that the announcer’s voice, breaking the quiet, is God’s own, filling the earth
With the only goodness fit to interrupt it: the crack of a ball and bat

And we can imagine, all around us, spreading out in endless waves,
The next great town, and then the city limits, rolling ever away,
All rising again, to crest until we rise with them,
Our heads unbowed and our eyes open
As we move from here to there—
From hope to hope—
In endless prayer