Wednesday is Poetry Day: Richard Harrison

Two weeks ago, I presented baseball poetry. Baseball lends itself to poetry--both are cerebral, complex, and boring to those of lesser intelligence. Notice there's no real good NASCAR poetry out there?

My other favorite sport is hockey. Maybe because it's easy to get tickets, maybe because it's a beautiful game, maybe because the first words my gf ever spoke to me were because of hockey...I like hockey a lot.

Two years ago, I wasn't watching hockey. No one was, because of the lockout. Little did we know that soon, in mid-February, the 2004-05 NHL season would be cancelled. People were Pissed Off.

Canadian poet Richard Harrison has published an entire book of hockey poetry, Hero of the Play, and he was one of those Pissed Off people. Soon after the season was cancelled in 2005, the following poem was published:

NH Elegy

Once, men came home from war,
or from the sides of family graves,
to lace up skates and play for it
as if everything could be remade
in a silver bowl passed hand to hand.
For years it etched the seasons
with their winning names,
and took the touch of triumph
into each triumphant house. It paused
just once – to mourn the dead, and
stayed unmarked to mark their passing.
Today, left idle in the Hall of Fame,
while rich men quarrel to no profit at its base,
untouched upon its plinth it stands.
And all who see it can tell you now
how a fallen thing is one that no one holds.

Of course, the 2006-07 hockey season started last week. The league has expanded from the Original Six teams to thirty teams, the Great Canadian Game...well, there are only 6 teams from cities in the Great White North. There are teams in Phoenix, Florida, Tennesee, and the defending Stanley Cup champions play in North Carolina. They're also winless, but there's a lot of season yet to go.

My beloved Caps have played only two games and they're 1 and 1, which, where they're concerned, is slightly above par for them in October. Yeah, baby...it's hockey season.

Game on!