Strokin' - Part One and Part Two
STROKIN’ – A QUARTET ABOUT AGING GRACEFULLY(?)
Strokin’: Hauling ass and working at it!
STROKIN’: PART ONE
THE SPRINTER
The aging Olympian ran a swift anchor leg
burning the first turn, striding the backstretch
like a big cat on the chase, the natural embodiment
of power, speed and grace
Once a man “without rhythm” in his own neighborhood,
he laid down a 400 that was syncopated soul through the
demanding white lines on a black cinder track on a
Saturday afternoon
And on the graveyard turn he burst into the lead
roaring out of that pack like the dark rolling thunder of a
sudden summer storm ripping hard through the skies with
the reckless velocity of a hot natural light
And sustaining his sprint as if driven by the drums and the
palpable passion of some tribal ensemble, he crossed the
finish line having anchored his team with the rhythmic
exuberance of delivering God’s word in an African Mass,
his obsidian body the sculpture of motion by the art of
desire, the smile on his face like the fire of the sun,
like the purest of joys for a race that’s been won!
The cognoscenti in the stands
said the old dude had been strokin’!
STROKIN’: PART TWO
THE OARSMAN
He was better than most, had 30 years
on the river, rowed with his mind, got the
body to follow, pulled his oars through the water
like a big balding barbarian building a bad
reputation for a winter of boasting, adding one
last feat to a legend in place
The sinuous geology of the post-glacial valley
and the thick working muscles of the tall, aging
oarsman were parallel motifs in a riverscape poem
for an autumn afternoon full of low-angle sunlight
and multi-colored leaves that painted the wide river
with diamonds that sparkled in a reflected
blue sky, the surface of the water like liquid
stained glass
Beyond the stone bridge, he left the young men
behind, found an internal power that surged like the
rapids in the rugged upland gorges of the river that
he rowed and the photo at the finish was a big
strapping guy in a sleek racing shell pulling hard
against the years on the shifting mosaics
of a big-city river flowing south
toward the sea!
The aficionados on the banks
said the old man had been strokin’!
Copyright © Emanuel Carter | Year Posted 2021
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