Three of the 8th graders have a ballgame
after school, and I’m invited.
The girls play with sweat and play to win.
At this age the level of play is less
than its importance is in life. The sky
above Central Park is brilliant, as if
it had chosen to be the very place
a white ball could rise in searching
open grass to land in, clearing the bases.
Last night Henry wrote “of the river rising
at last above its banks, and my spirits
rise with it.” After graduation
a girl who spoke little,
more often leaving than arriving,
pushed forward her younger brother
who, without a pause, “what a wonder
her teacher was this year, caring,
sensitive, inspiring,” grinning, the boy
stood like a red and white can
spraying whipped cream, then they left:
he the adverb, his sister the verb.
Kip Zegers is from Chicago, educated at John Carroll University and Northwestern University. He was a VISTA volunteer living and working in central Harlem from 1966-67 and then attended Union Theological Seminary, applied for and received Conscientious Objector status. He has published three full length volumes and six chapbooks, most recently The Poet of Schools, Dos Madres Press, 2013 and The Pond in Room 318, Dos Madres, 2015. He began teaching at Hunter College H. S., a public high school for gifted students, in 1984. Teaches now at SAGE and New York Hospital Community Outreach.
