by Ron Riekki
Tiger, Tiger, burning bright, (due to all the stadium lights)
In the forests of the night; (as that’s what turf grass looks like)
What immortal hand or eye, (like Kaline, Al, and Cobb, Ty)
Could frame they fearful symmetry? (but Fleer and Topps will always try)
In the distant deeps and skies of Palmer,
I’d play baseball to keep me calmer
and it was the same with my father,
he was fatherless, except on the diamond,
where coaches turned us into pitchers and linemen
and point guards and goalies in a town of mining,
where we’d forget about hematite and iron ore
in the bliss of 1945 and 1984,
and 1935 and 1968,
the years where all we did was celebrate,
like both the sky and our insides were bright as uranium
and in 2022, as a vet, they honored me at the stadium
and Detroit Tigers, you are always burning bright
in the forests of the night
and I held my hand to my heart that night
where I got to feel what being honored is like.
Thank you, Detroit Tigers.
Thank you.
Ron Riekki’s books include Blood/Not Blood Then the Gates (Middle West Press), My Ancestors are Reindeer Herders and I Am Melting in Extinction (Apprentice House Press), Posttraumatic (Hoot ‘n’ Waddle), and U.P. (Ghost Road Press). Right now, Riekki’s listening to Mychael Danna’s “It’s a Process” from the Moneyball film score.
