Softball Quadrille

I'm back from vacation! It was amazing. Maybe I'll even post a few pictures. But that's beside the point...because it's Quadrille Monday over at dVerse and the assignment is to write a quadrille (a 44 word poem) using the word "echo" in some way. 

This weekend I got the call to come sub for my friend's softball team (adult rec league) because they were short a player. 

Turned out we were short more than one player and had to forfeit before we'd even started, but the other team wanted to play and had an abundance of players, so they loaned us a few players (and bats)  and away we went.

How did we do? Oh, so badly. How did I do? Badly. But no worse than anyone else. The forfeit was mooted by how badly we lost. I actually don't know how badly we lost by because I wasn't counting and no one announced anything, but the final score was definitely A Lot to None. 

Anyway, I was in the outfield most of the game, because during the decade or so I played softball as a kid I was always in the outfield. And the minute I started standing out there, I felt like I'd never left the outfield. That same dream-like state induced by mostly just watching a game one is also participating in kicked in...and it inspired this poem:


Softball Quadrille
 
Remarkable how fast
the echo of the past
seals around my curved view;
suddenly the last decade is gone
and I've never left the outfield.
 
A descending deja vu,
I'm thinking the same thoughts I used to;
half escapist clouds
and half quiet strategy.