Before I Die

Frank Van Zant

I want one moment of dedication like this skinny old man's
who takes game notes in a high school gym on Long Island

preparing to regale the six person crowd
with basketball announcements

Madison Square Garden style

though as a kid I would have mocked this curious man
who wins me by trying to steady a mic with trembling hands

by puffing every liter of his lung capacity
squeezed from accordian ribs

AND NOW, LADIES AND GENTLEMEN
YOUR FIGHTING EAGLES!

he is a kind of god
booming player’s names from his amplified person into the rafters of our universe

because only a god will keep score with precise intensity
only he can remember how that local doctor in the stands
made Yale Med after scoring 5.6 ppg. in 1977
a god announces the difference between
a basket scored and travelling
remembers, when a former player makes the local news,
how many offensive rebounds
the celebrity had as a junior, urging
us to buy hot dogs at half-time
on sale for a buck from the Glee Club, great deal

a god doesn’t care that his old clothes are stretchedbr> like clay into the form of a body
a god applauds the cheerleaders for their dancing gusto
without flinching at their siren arms, luscious eyes,
but scribbling at every buzzer, tallying
the yield of the nets, the commitment of fouls
the sacrifices for the team

passionately, as if his professionalism alone were a moral imperative,
his conduct & concentric pronouncements influential, widening
making us we believe with oracular certainty
that if our score’s in orde here in the little corner
of our random rapid cosmos
there can be no room for war, no crime,
no seven deadly sins

nothing but a ledgered accounting of how things have gone

only a god can point to a particular halogen bulb
hanging from the ceiling
and tell us when it last blew out during a game
declaring how for a time there was an absence of light.

Frank Van Zant