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other poems
sports poems
china poems
The Zen of Raquetball
for Clyde Huyck
When I was 40 and a brand-new
hot-shot full prof,
I agreed to play a young
philosophy prof in love with Zen.
“You know,” he said, over coffee
the day before the match,
“what I really enjoy is
watching the ball going
back and forth.”
“Yeah,” I said,
“it is fun, isn’t it?”
That was a lie. It wasn’t
fun; it was win win win.
Next day we ducked into the court
and, seeing his skinny,
library legs and flimsy K-Mart
racquet, I knew what was about
to happen. I beat him I5-zip
four straight games, and I
noticed he was smiling
as he played, obviously
having a good time losing—
just watching the ball,
when I hit it, going back and
forth, splatting out low
on the wall, dying low, and
lower, in the corners.
That was 15 years ago.
The Zen prof didn’t get tenure,
so he’s gone, teaching in
a private college up in Minnesota,
the kind of campus where
students drive Porsches and have
fireplaces in their dorm rooms.
And what about me? I stayed.
And with bad knees and a brace
on one of them, I still like
to play new, young profs.
But now it’s different,
I’ll admit. I like to watch
the ball going back and forth.
In fact, I like to meditate,
right there in the court.
I take a deep breath,
and exhale slowly as
the ball meets my racquet;
I watch the sweet spot
collapse slightly;
as the ball stops and is
about to leave I smell it,
taste it, hear it, feel it,
see it, and—not to kill it
or to win but just to keep it
in play—I swing, and
follow it with my goggled eyes
to the wall and then back to
my opponent’s racquet.
Focused, patient, breathing
like a man reading in bed,
I wait, and consider the ball
growing bigger and bigger
as it comes back to me—its
blue, quick, transient life.
I watch it flying back and
forth through the
white-walled universe.