Up From the Ashes

Staring at Tri-City Baseball Park's picture
BAM!
came an eerie recognition.
E-mailing the photo's keeper,
my message was insane-
I could swear I was looking at Duke Power Field
(city monument to potbellied slowpitch softballers).
AND SO I WAS!

Only part of Tri-City was torn down;
the rest uprooted and replanted (God knows how)
3/4 of a mile down the road.
Imagine:
eating,
sleeping,
and breathing
baseball history from age 8,
sitting in those bleachers,
CLUELESS of their significance.

Tri-City's roof was an unwanted bastard-
sold to Danville in the late 40's,
closing Ballou Park in 1958,
and now atop Burlington's Fairchild Stadium.

Stands sitting alone at 3 a.m. under a full moon,
their grey paint glowed silver
as I recited the litany
of wonderful, mediocre, and terrible
battling like gamecocks
before TWO lights on two poles
in left center and right center-
Martinsville Athletics
Danville Leafs
Winston Salem Cardinals
Durham Bulls
Greensboro Patriots
Raleigh Caps
Burlington Bees
and Tri-City Trips.

The devil chants a twisted Kipling refrain-
time is change - but is it art?

Dan Grey Taylor Jr.


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