Mickey Mantle and Chinaberry Trees

by Ron Wallace

As October descends 
like a feathering of dust 
in an empty room,
the color of fireflies fades 
from my summer nights 
beneath a moon, alabaster white.

This cooling of air
this shortening of the sun 
has always bothered me.

I remember being twelve, 
sitting in the shade of a chinaberry tree 
grown to the fence 
next to the house 
where my grandmother lived
before she didn’t. 
Rubbing neatsfoot oil 
into the laces, 
the palm and pocket 
of my Rawlings glove,
I pretended to hear country music,
drifting from the silent radio 
in the empty house.

The golden tan darkened 
around the X’s 
that stitched the fingers together 
connecting pocket to thumb 
weaving a web of leather 
designed to take a baseball from midair.

I can still see
the practiced cursive of Mickey Mantle
etched into the palm
as my fingers measured the oil
to rub into the Rawlings
where his signature
was stamped like a cattle brand.

And if I try
really hard
half a century flown
like a great horned owl into the night,
I can still smell the way the leather smelled
as I worked the oil
meant for Dad’s saddle
into the folds and crevices of the glove,
knowing I would soon surrender it
to the coming winter.

Long before I understood metaphor
and simile,
somehow
even as a boy,
when I leaned back
against that Chinaberry,
and felt the rough bark through my tee shirt,
I knew that season of beauty
that time of turning leaves
marked endings I did not wish to see,
and I sensed a sadness
that I could not explain,
watching two kids next door throw a football
back and forth
across the dying grass
of their front lawn.