My father wrote this poem sometime before I was born. It is a classic tale of baseball closing the gap between father and son. For years it has sat in our living room. I think it is time that it is shared with the world.
Night Games
by: Barry Gorman
In the electric August
darkness we’d lay on
the four-poster mahogany
bed, He & i, hands
laced behind our necks,
and listen to a liquid
radio voice falling
from the Philco.
The voice drifting in
and trailing off like
an infant’s nighttime cry.
He’d curse the black plastic
box, sliding it back and
forth on the bedside
night table like a
rook on a chessboard,
until the fluttering
voice cleared itself
to relay jingled tales
of 6-4-3 doubleplays and
long flys to center.
i’d pepper him with too
many “whys?” He’d quiet
me with too few “shuhhs!”
He’d lecture, i’d listen
and learn of innings
and outs and things in
between, while outside
the window fireflies
flashed signals in
night games of their own.
Wally's Wall 