Golf

I like playing golf. However, I will admit not having for quite a while. This is largely due to the fact that where I was living there were only private courses for the rich. I’d love to start up again. It’s reasonably inexpensive, good exercise, and relaxing.

Some of my fondest memories of childhood are waking up on the weekend and going out to the Par 3 golf course with my dad. We’d get up at the break of dawn, and I can still see the glistening dew come up from the green as I putted. In one of my few times at a private club an employee came up to inquire what I was doing there. I must have seemed out of place to him.

I also enjoy watching golf on TV. That is not to say there isn’t a lot that has to be ignored. There’s a lot of sanctimoniousness (is any announcer as bad as Jim Nantz?) and way too much analysis. Commercials, which should always be ignored*, advertise BMW, Wells Fargo, and Rolex (not Folex).

*There are exceptions:

The Bane of the Blooming Moon

The Bane of the Blooming Moon
1
In a cottage
at the end
of a trail of tears
a newborn baby
was cradled in a doctor’s arms
unresponsive.

Beside himself
with terror,
the father snatched the boy,
and raced outside.

With an axle
he crushed the icy lake surface
and plunged the child in.

It came out crying.

2
The old rancher
with uncouth manners
looked upon the tiny infant
and predicted its demise,
but it had other ideas
fighting off the convulsions
that wracked his body,
the temperatures
nothing but a bathtub of ice
could dispel.

3
With his parents
traveling the vaudeville circuit
he slept in the drawers of cheap hotels,
was cared for by chorus girls
backstage.

At seven,
his mother,
the singer,
took a very public dose
of mercury
and
lived
though her marriage
and career
ended.

4
As he retraced the steps
to his ancestral home,
clouds dispersed
and the moon transformed
the disconnect
between words and thoughts,
shadows at the bottom of his soul.

The church bells chimed
across the makeshift bases
set up in a field
of weeds and thistles.

Near the swamp
a wildcat’s back arched
to the sky
as if to ward off evil.

Being the Youngest 1

“The neighbors’ house needs painting. You’re such a good little worker. Here’s a can of paint. Surprise them!”