I Look Out and I Hear the Knell

 

I look out and I hear the knell

From my room in the Coatesville Hotel.

Oh, why can’t it be as it was before

A few years after  ’54?

 

In fact it would be great

If we could go back to  ’58.

And I think it would be my plan

To be kinder to Richie Holleran

 

Who has been buried since—I quite forget.

No matter. I can see him yet.

At the age of ten in Central Park

It’s almost nine and getting dark

 

And he tells me it’s his fondest dream

To be on a Coatesville Little League Baseball team

To be like “the other guys, you know.”

And I tell him that he cannot throw.

 

“You cannot throw. You cannot hit.

And you don’t know baseball from shit.

And besides they have but little wit.

O Richie Holleran.”

 

Ok, then I will reveal

How I, back then, did really feel.

Richie Halloran was my friend

And had told me of his coming end.

 

The doctors said that his dizzy spells

Meant he wasn’t doing well.

And he heard his Mom and Dad

Crying. He said “I was so sad.”

 

And his Mom had told the nuns

Who had told the Moms who had told their sons

Who considered him the Walking Dead.

“I want to be like those guys,” he said.

 

So we were there in Central Park

Almost nine and getting dark.

“Christ, you’re dumb” I did remark.

To Richie Holleran.