Strokin' - Part Three and Part Four
STROKIN’: PART THREE
THE FULLBACK
He was twenty-eight yards and
thirty-two seconds from the end of a career
He had broken several bones, had a permanent
limp, knew the burden of performance to be an
unforgiving weight like the heavy black
barbells he lifted every day
As the bright, flooding lights bathed the
angular field within the circular arena, revealed
the eerie mathematics of tactics and execution
through the crystalline veil of a wind-driven sleet,
he ran the “forty-three scissors” for the very
last time
Behind the savage right tackle who obliterated
the linebacker made famous by the press, he cut
back up the middle with the athletic precision\of
a quarter horse at work in a high plains stampede
and rumbled toward the goal like a pudgy
high school senior hearing his best girl
in the stands!
The network color analyst
said the veteran pro had been
strokin’!
STROKIN’: PART FOUR
A MAN ALMOST LIKE ME
From a breath-taking perch
overlooking the clearing where
a narrow rapid stream carved a deepening
ravine through a thick old-growth forest above
the ocean nearby, a solitary gentleman considered
the progress of a polyrhythmic life of aspiration
and achievement, misjudgment and endurance,
of tragedy and recovery and of emotional
maturation in sensuality and love, of the many
contradictions that flowed through his being
like the turbulent squalls bringing snowfall
then lightning to the gray churning clouds, to the
crashing white water and to the intermittent
sunlight that cradled his home
Having crafted a life out of synch with his time,
unable to brag and, no matter the challenges,
refusing to whine, he was weathered but sanguine,
expectant and primed
Reluctantly aging but ready for adventure,
he was an animated spirit, a bold navigator in an
endless milieu full of blessings and bounty,
full of beauty and grace, and like a migrating orca,
he was a long- distance swimmer and the muscles
of his soul, though older and slower, were red-hot
and ready for the remainder of his journey and
whatever might come!
He stood up to move on and the people around him
whose beautiful stories intertwined with his own
were right there beside him, even right there inside him
and buoyed by the wonder of unexpected love their spirits
were dancing as if the sun and the moon and this
beautiful blue planet had been made just for them
They were ardent and driven by the power of purpose
and faith in the future, they were determined and ready
and surprisingly strong, somehow awkwardly happy
and like him, they were strokin’!
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