An elegy at the loss of my friend:

They were swifter than eagles.

(Second Samuel chapter one)

David’s elegy at the loss of his friend Jonathan (Second Samuel chapter one) prompted me to try to write an elegy of my own. I’m not sure mine is actually a poem—nothing rhymes like Anna’s poems do. Let’s call it “As Long as there was a Ball”—in memory of Gary Kinser, 1945-2019:

As long as there was a ball,

     we played for keeps;

One-on-one,        

     with something to be won or lost.

While in college it was basketball,

     one-on-one to thirty by ones;

Winner not only gets top bunk for the week,

     but his girlfriend’s picture alone displayed.

Lots of sweat, bumps and grinds,

     swirling hook shots, fakes and jumpers;

Gary excelled at muscling in,

     while I finessed the perimeter.

There were other balls—a softball

     and a Ping-Pong ball for instance;

All played one-on-one with strengths and vigor,

     for there was always something to be won or lost.

It started from the first,

     while in junior high;

A one-on-one baseball game devised

     in my backyard.

It had to do with two cement steps

     to our back patio;

If you had a ball, a baseball for instance,

     you could make a game out of it.

Standing back some twenty feet or so,

     we would throw the ball at the stairs;

bringing all sorts of things into play,

     from a ground ball to a home run.

If a grounder,

     the other would have to field it;

Throw it on a bounce towards the high end of the patio,

     while catching the bounce back on base for an out.

If the ball caught the edge point of the steps just right,

     the ball would return high in the air;

Sometimes high enough to clear the hedge behind us

     —a home run.

When in high school,

     we played some team sports,

Gary at guard me next to him at left end;

     or, if baseball, Gary in center field, me in right.

But as long as there was a ball,

     one-on-one was our game;

With something on the line,

     —something bigger than we ever knew.