A New Poet

Finding a new poet
is like finding a new wildflower
out in the woods. You don't see

its name in the flower books, and
nobody you tell believes
in its odd color or the way

its leaves frow in splayed rows
down the whole length of the page. In fact
the very smells of spilled

red wine and the mustiness of the sea
on a foggy day--the odor of truth
and of lying.

And the words are so familiar,
so strangely new, words
you almost wrote yourself, if only

in your dream there had been a pencil
or a pen or even a paintbrush,
if only there had been a flower.

--Linda Pastan

Baseball

When you tried to tell me
baseball was a metaphor

for life: the long, dusty travail
around the bases, for instance,

to try to go home again;
the Sacrifice for which you win

approval but not applause;
the way the light closes down

in the last days of the season--
I didn't believe you.

It's just a way of passing
the time, I said.

And you said: that's it.
Yes.

--Linda Pastan