When he hit the homerun

For Henry (Hank) Aaron (1934-2021) 

It felt like sudden summer
            & we could bound loose
                        like hound pups in the yard

after dinner track lightening
            bugs or lie down in damp grass
                        find & trace a shooting star. 

To us, he was a winged thing
            bird man of brown & blue
                        who bore into a beam 

of light & hammered it
            until the shaft lifted vast
                        & far above our heads. 

We did not know how hatred
            ratchets people’s minds
                        into a kind of blaze 

that slowly burns until their being
            smothers, enclosed in a singed
                        ring of ashy haze. 

It was likely cold in April,     
             Pennsylvania, ‘74
                        barely green outside our door

when the game came on
            our old TV stationed
                         in the front room there. 

He flared a gleam into the stands.
            And we, gladdened, jubilant
                        heaved up our hands to heaven 

until the globes of light above
            gave way & crashed – just like the ball
                        shattered in his glow.