18 Ways Of Looking At A White Ball Poem by Edmond Sheehy

I.

It feels like it's twenty degrees, the greens
are serrated with frost, the only
moving thing is my eye -
following this white ball.

II.

It was a par three, I greened then
finished the hole after three putts,
no prayer can control this white ball.

III.

The white ball rolled up and hid
within the autumn leaves
like a child playing hide and seek.

IV.

A man and a woman are of one mind,
unless one of them is always thinking
of this white ball.

V.

No one needs to live like this.
I don't know whether
I should loft the white ball with a sand wedge
or I should end it all.

VI.

A trace of snow remains in the bunker.
The shadow of the white ball
stretches across the frozen sand
and the spindrift.


VII.

No one else is on the front nine;
the sun warms me on the tee;
the white ball rockets from my club
then hits an oak tree
and ricochets and settles behind me.

VIII.

My wife loves me. My children radiate joy.
Yet, here I am this cold October dawn,
cursing after a white ball.

IX.

If I was a skinnier man I would sink more birdies.
Perhaps then people would not walk all over me.
My thoughts are enemies.
There is only the white ball
and the putt in front of me

X.

I know that Chinese sages would sprawl
near this tall white grass
to picnic and drink plum wine.
I have abandoned immortality,
who seek only the white ball.

XI.

When the white ball dribbled
off the fairway
it didn't even frighten the deer.

XII.

If I can't make par on this next hole
then I will disdain the white ball
as incomplete and imperfect
of no use in life
unworthy of my ministrations
and my sacrifice.


XIII.

I followed the white ball as it scurried past the green
there were ledges beyond, levels in hell,
each one, a chip shot.

XIV.

My weight shifts off the back foot and I
turn torque into energy. The white ball
flies majestically in a high arc from this uphill tee.
No king could ever be more pleased with his dominion.

XV.

The sight of the white ball flying
above orange trees
and yellow trees
and trees insinuating that they too
will fade but are forced to be green yet
confuses me and I lose my ball
and mulligan.

XVI.

The 16th hole rises to a view where you
can see Massachusetts and Connecticut.
Wearing progressive lenses I make out
bare boughs on far away ridges
but I can't find the white ball.

XVII.

I strike without remorse or repentance.
The white ball moves ceaselessly forwards.
My job is to minimize the stresses it must endure.


XVIII.

It has been the 19th hole all afternoon
since that young lovely in the white skirt
drove by in the refreshment cart.
Somehow we will make the clubhouse
before it starts to snow.
I see a bird land near the cedar,
near the white ball;
it is not a crow, but a blackbird.