Exhaustion is the weariness
worst,
The feeling futile that attends
on the end
Of a worn-long day.
What a calm of a balm is to
sit and befit
All the futile flat-fall to
its ether home.
On the solid of a bench and
the common of the park
In the lee, sunward-wise,
of a tree, put I
As it’s setting and its
glory limns their limbs who try.
Three black men in three white
shirts
Run the length and the
strength of the long green field.
Past the chain-link screen,
little nimble-running shapes
Trying not to run clumped
like a bunch of grapes
Learn soccer from a hoarse-heard coach.
Soccer and running are words for belonging
And the goal is the means to the fill of the
longing.
So the little one stopping to tie his shoe
Keeps an eye on the hopping and stray of the ball
Which the runningmen bounce easy back in the flip
Of their looping continuous strain.
I who am perfect because of my work
Look at these who are perfect because they are
God’s
And the futile falls off from my shoulders.
