Exercises at the Parade Grounds

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.