The major leagues, and metaphysics

Last night, I walked home through a baseball field
and as I felt the dew spread over my sandals,
I imagined I was in the majors.
The sun glanced off a bat
and I heard the crack as it met the ball.
Felt the entire field running as the breeze
lifted and flattened the grass,
the mitt caught,
and the crowd erupted.

At that point, the night returned
to my consciousness, like an oil spill
crawling over the ocean.

The darkness dripped down every tree trunk,
winding through the cracked pavement,
and then leapt across the green,
crossing the distance between
sunlight and midnight -
vision and sight.

Like the Pharaoh of long ago
finding the red sea preparing to fall
back upon itself, under the control of
something far greater than Ra,
I stood stunned.

For a moment, I thought of jumping.
Betting that this wave would curl around me
and I would flip one eighty,
like wakeboarding through ink,
and at the crest I could see
the next page of this life,
wonder at it all
like a butterfly
peering around
the petal to the nectar.

If only every lonely moment was really like this:
the darkness peeled off me
like blankets on a wintry morning.