All Text, Music, and Illustrations, including Paintings, Photographs, and 3D models, Copyright © 2022 by Jim Robbins.

Toad in Tree Root

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BACKYARD BASEBALL

One of us poised near tree roots,

grasping a ball of mushed wet paper

wrapped in rubber bands, the other, in front

of the shed door, waving a broken broom handle.

 

The ball flew like thought

from mound to shed, and both of us

connected, four or five times, whacking

it over the leafed-out fruitless mulberry

to plop in the neighbor’s yard. Like

super stars in a world series game,

for an afternoon we were sometimes one

with bat and ball, clearly reading

the opposition. Then Dad died,

and my brother moved away. The tree

rotted from within, a stump where

two toads made their home

in the hollow roots, the eaves

of the shed dangling a long beehive,

the house finally abandoned.

In the shed thick with webs,

I found the broom handle

and stepped up to the plate. As

I swung the bat, I recalled how

my brother had smacked the ball

so sweetly that it sailed high over

the tree, over the fence,

and kept flying to where

we could never find it again.