Classic Poem

The bibulous eagle behind me at the ball game:
" Shucks a'mighty! " coming through the rye
And Seven-Up, " I didn't mean to kick you, lady.
When you go to the Eagles' convention, you just go ! "
Then he needles the batter from Sacramento:
" Too much ego! " he yells. " The old ego curse,
That'll hex him. The old ego never fails.
See? " he says to his phlegmatic friend,
" The bastard fanned! " And " Shucks a'mighty! "
Says again, an American from an English novel,
Named Horace or Homer, a strange colonial bird,
A raw provincial, with his outmoded slang.

" Say! " he cries to his friend, " just now I opened
One eye, saw the catcher, then the batter
In a little circle. And everything went brown.
What happened? " " Nothing! " says his friend.
He leans beside me, proffers the open pint.
My ego spurns him. " Fly away! " I say
To the badge on his breast. Eagle flaps down,
Confides in the man on first: " Just once a year
I have fun — see? — at the Eagles' convention.
Later I meet the other dignitaries
At the hotel. Forgive me. I'm from a small town. "
He sighs, puts his head in the lap of his friend,

Listens to the portable radio, as the announcer
Makes sense of a blurry ball game
When batters turn brown, curl at the edges,
Fan and fan, like girls in early English novels,
And you can't tell the players, even with a program.
The count is two and one. We hear the crack!
Bat skids across the grass. The runner's on!
But eagle sleeps; he dreams away the ball game.
The dozen wasted hits, the double-plays
Are lost on him, as we lose, by one run.
Having his inning curled in a little circle,
He emerges, sucks his bottle; his badge mislaid

In the last of the ninth. We surge to the exits
While this bird claws among the peanut shells
In search of his ego. Carry him, friend,
To the dignitaries, to the eagle's aerie,
Where his mate will hone her talons on his breast.
As D. H. Lawrence wished, he has cracked the shell
Of his ego, but devoured it like a nut
Washed down with rye. And he finds oblivion
Like the lost hero of a Modern English Novel.
What happens? Nothing. Even the brilliant infield
Turns brown. Lights out. The circle fades below.
Shucks a'mighty. If you're an eagle, you just go.