Passing Baton

Had occasion to see a snippet from Out of Africa.
(Looking for a picture of Malik Bowens in mufti.)

She reads . . . can't let go of the dirt . . .

THE time you won your town the race
We chaired you through the market-place;
Man and boy stood cheering by,
And home we brought you shoulder-high.

To-day, the road all runners come,
Shoulder-high we bring you home,
And set you at your threshold down,
Townsman of a stiller town.

Smart lad, to slip betimes away
From fields where glory does not stay,
And early though the laurel grows
It withers quicker than the rose.

Eyes the shady night has shut
Cannot see the record cut,
And silence sounds no worse than cheers
After earth has stopped the ears:

Now you will not swell the rout
Of lads that wore their honours out,
Runners whom renown outran
And the name died before the man.

So set, before its echoes fade,
The fleet foot on the sill of shade,
And hold to the low lintel up
The still-defended challenge-cup.

And round that early-laurelled head
Will flock to gaze the strengthless dead,
And find unwithered on its curls
The garland briefer than a girl's.

Thank you, Louis Untermeyer. Really.


From there was a distant memory of a school film festival.
I filled in occasionally on relay teams. Shot-putter, see.
Everyone had to run cross-country. Conditioning.
Toward the baseball season, actually. No winter ball.

Van Courtlandt Park. Two miles eating dust. Chugging.
Glorious when the finish, the pennants, appeared.
Blimey if I didn't have meself a kick. Floating. Flying.
Then home and a cheeseburger at the Greeks. Delish.

Tom Courteney is President of here these days.
He was, you recall, the guy who didn't holler:
Stop that train! That fellow refused "honors".
Bravo that and someone else same thing; no way.

All the sonnets! (Me too up the Republic.) Sign him up.