the city

I live in the little village of the present 
But lately I forget my neighbors’ names. 
More and more I spend my days in the City:

The great metropolis where I can hope 
To glimpse great spirits as they cross the street 
Souls durable as the cockroach and the lungfish.

When I was young, I lived in a different village. 
We had parades: the circus, the nearby fort. 
And Rabbi Gewirtz invented a game called “Baseball.”

To reach first base you had to chant two lines 
Of Hebrew verse correctly. Mistakes were outs. 
One strike for every stammer or hesitation.

We boys were thankful or the Rabbi’s grace, 
His balancing the immensity of words 
Written in letters of flame by God himself

With our mere baseball, the little things we knew… 
Or do I remember wrong, did we boys think 
(There were no girls) that baseball was the City

And that the language we were learning by rote- 
A little attention to meaning, now and then- 
Was small and local. The Major Leagues, the City.

-Robert Pinsky