WAHCONAH PARK


The wooden stands creak.
    Admire the forest of ballcaps.
        Teenagers text with T-1 thumbs.

Boys toss and catch
    effortlessly eighteen
        their calves limned with elastic.

Sunset delay: the lights flare
    painting the dirt Georgia red
        the field green as artificial turf.

Between innings
    children spin like dreidls
        then race drunkenly across the grass.

By the end our mouths taste of hops.
    Peanut shells crunch underfoot.
        Kinsella tells us stories all the way home.

Today's NaPoWriMo prompt offers four photographs to inspire poetry. One of them is of a baseball field.

I named this poem after the old wooden ballpark in Pittsfield, and many of the sensory details were drawn from memories of games there.