#desertwriting

Some batters arrive at the plate carrying heft. Some bring grace. Some survive enough innings to become myth. They’re all here and part of Team Flame. Nine batters in burnings and meditations, spirits and fires, spectacles and labors, longings and memories. They are dangerous poetic beautiful. Bodies on fire, smoking bats. Arms on fire, blazing flames. At the plate: combustions, strikeouts,…

Nine At-Bats BATTING SEVENTH Number 12, Second Base, FALSE FIRE  (Coaches note: known for the glove and turning the double play) I spent years looking for the dramatic burning bush while overlooking the smaller flames surrounding me. The welder’s torch.Lantern light at the cabin.Woodstoves in February.The flare of match heads.Campfire smoke and flame registered in flannel jackets.The orange…

A Hermit Crab Essay, Nine At-Bats in a Lineup Card BATTING CLEANUP Number 14, First Base, Antelope Ranch (Coaches note: power and contact) Motorcycling headlong into July’s hot wind, I was nearly there when I turned onto a dirt road and rumbled fifteen miles over boulders and ditches strewn with whitewashed bones: antelope skeletons, scattered ribs, skulls bleached by sun. I was on the way…

A Hermit Crab Essay, Nine At-Bats in a Lineup Card BATTING SECOND Number 4, Short Stop, Asphalt (Coaches note: the fastest runner) On desert rides heat is built into the asphalt like a burning memory. In the desert’s hot waves, I recall Midwest summers when ball fields baked under August suns and my heart learned how quickly it could burn and how slowly it could mend. Summer, heat, the…