SEARCHING FOR BALLATA

Some words unnerve like people do,
confusing with their promise.
Your sudden visit, from the blue,
brings to mind a case in point:
that shifty word, ballata.

Is it the new "forbidden dance"?
A folk song from the Renaissance?
An ancient form of martial art?
A secret left-wing movement?
("My comrades in the ballata,
tonight we liberate Minsk!")
Perhaps it is a native grain?
A kind of prehistoric fish?
Or just some gutter expletive?
("You son of a ballata!")

Then I learned, in World War II
rubber had become so scarce,
they tried a gummy substitute
to fill the core of baseballs.
It had the name ballata.
But when a bat touched these balls,
their sole trajectory was down.
They didn't bounce; they hugged the ground.
Two strikes and ballata was out.

Which takes my rambling thoughts to you--
so casual, just passing through.
It seems, how long, a hundred years
since last I saw you in the flesh.
Your rose has given up some bloom;
my plant stays firmly potted.
Yet though it's bottom of our ninth,
I hear the National Anthem.
My ump cries out Play ball!

Each time I sidle to the plate,
you stare me down from the mound.
What you pitch, I still can't touch.
Your infinite variety
of curves and biting sliders,
they tie me up inside.
And then, my final turn at bat
(Bronx cheers raining from the crowd;
redemption one good poke away),
my mind wanders from the game.
The ball, the bat, a cloudless sky.
See the fences disappear˙
the players float like balloons˙
the fans peel off all their clothes
and throw them as confetti.
Everything is possible
save for hitting that damn ball.
Strike three called, while I dream.

So, remember this when we part:
You've been, you are, you always will
be the ballata of my heart.