Little League Scorebook

Little League Scorebook

Tim Peeler

When the heat draws the ants in,
Lightning’s black hammers splatter
The ballpark and Dad scrambles
To save the spiral scorebook,
Sinking it in the bat bag
Beneath the catcher’s mitt,
Punching Louisville sluggers
Into black plastic batter’s
Helmets, cinching the draw cord.
Paul, my twelve-year-old brother,
Bigger than Dad, shouldering
The load as we cleat up the
Red dirt bank to the lot where
Dad pops the tortoise shell on
The brown Rambler four door, the
Car everyone knows to be
Pastor Peeler’s; we climb in
Just as the sky glasses with
Rain and the devil beating
His wife, as they once told us.
                  .  .  .
After recent orphaning,
I leaf this green scorebook I
Found under Dad’s sermons to
The story of our childhood,
Coded on yellowed pages
He saved because he knew I would be,
Beyond the storm of the years,
Nostalgic even in grief.

Tim Peeler is a retired educator from Western North Carolina who has written twenty-two books of poetry, short stories, and regional history. He has twice been a finalist for the Casey Award for baseball book of the year, and five of his books are housed in the library at the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, NY.  Most recently he has collaborated with the Appalachian photographer Clayton Young on books that combine verse narratives and rural images.

Matt Lawrence is a Spanish/ESOL teacher in Baltimore, Maryland.  He is the father of two young men and has been deriving joy from making art for decades. You can check out some of his work on Instagram @Mattymarcador.

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