Benjamin Myers

The Pitcher's Arm

To find the saplings lanky in the field,

awkwardly stretched toward flat, indifferent sun,

growing through anthills, sparse grass, and earth peeled

bare by high wind; to find the seedlings run

down by the mower blade and tossed aside,

the piles of brush, cut sycamore and oak,

heaped up against the summer’s waxing tide

of yellowed grass in air as furred as smoke;

is finding something out about almost,

not quite, and could have been: the pitcher’s arm

grown heavy in the minor leagues, the ghost

of young glory sent back to haunt the farm.

The world is crammed with what’s not there, not quite,

as saplings rise to die in gold-flecked light.

Bacchus Departs the Camp of Mark Antony

A clash of cups and bowls splashes the night.

The naked captain rolls beneath the fleece

and knows that all is done, tomorrow’s fight

the last, the rest a silence they’ll call peace.

He listens to the timbrels and the calls

that trail between the tents and out of camp.

The sounds of revelry fade, and silence falls.

The breath from night’s slack lungs is cold and damp.

He marvels at so little left among

us mortals when the god’s abundance flees.

He strains to hear a distant drinking song

that’s really just the wind through broken trees.

At dawn he’ll rise, take up his shield, his sword,

his doom. The man must die; the god is bored.

Benjamin Myers was the 2015-2016 poet laureate of Oklahoma and is the author of four books of poetry and three books of nonfiction. His work has appeared in Image, The Yale Review, Measure, and many other places. He has written essays for many prominent journals and magazines and is a contributing editor for Front Porch Republic. He teaches at Oklahoma Baptist University, where he also directs the Great Books Honors Program. Myers' most recent book is The Family Book of Martyrs.