The Boy
in the Basket
by Thomas Swiss
This is Michael Carey for Voices from the Prairie a weekly sampling from
the rich soil of Iowa’s literary tradition. Today’s writer is Thomas
Swiss. In this poem you are at a summer morning small community T-ball game,
with little children trying to swing huge bats at a motionless ball and parents
clapping wildly and looking on at their youngsters adoringly, until a boy who
cannot walk or stand is carried out in an obviously home-made basket to contribute
his part for the team. The score doesn’t really matter here. The poem and
this small town game is about inclusion, and empathy, and the joy of simply
being alive, of playing the game, being well enough to get in a few swings at
life and to feel some sort of connection.
The Boy
in The Basket
Sidelined with others
his age, with the third-graders
too small or too afraid of the ball to do much good
in these early innings, the boy in a basket goes unnoticed
until it’s his
time to bat. Then he is there (top of
the fourth, one kid on), being wheeled out by three
of his teammates. In caps and cleats, pushing his heavy,
gleaming, metal chair,
they seem in no hurry to reach
the damp field, wading through the rough grass that sets
the basket rocking. Someone who loves him must have
rigged this contraption,
someone who admires this boy
for working at a game he can’t altogether play.
What happens when he hits the ball? Everybody’s watching,
as over our heads the
sun’s setting, first mosquitoes
snag the air, and the broad shadows make it hard
to see exactly how he is positioned in that thing.
I’m curious. I
want to know how it works, how he’s able
to stand up, what supports him in the basket
and holds the basket to the chair. Are there parents here
not drawn into pity,
and then, without a gap,
into thinking about their own kids? It’s creepy,
comparing problems, but right now the usual concerns –
asthma, awkwardness,
the extra pounds that bring on teasing—
all seem nothing. Yet trying to picture his life,
I have to go back thirty years—to when the son
of one of my mother’s
friends got hit, almost killed, by a car.
Though I saw him in his chair only twice, my mother
told me stories. What was I to understand? The usual stuff
about fortune and courage? Something
American, Biblical?
When they arrive at home plate, this slow moving foursome,
the helpers stand back, and one hands the boy
a bat, about half the usual size.
Then the umpire lowers
the tee, and everything’s strangely back on track:
the concession line starts moving again, the outfielders chat,
the duck that wandered into the bleachers
finds its way to the shady pond. That’s when
I hear from the rows down in front a few people
shouting. Come on, Tim! Or
is it Tom? I can’t tell
from watching if Tim or Tom hears them, but then confidence,
like happiness, doesn’t always need to be coaxed.
The kid who runs for the boy who
can’t—he knows this,
and waving to the cheering strangers,
heads for second as if he were that very boy.
"The Boy in the Basket" by Thomas Swiss from his book Rough Cut
published by the University of Illinois Press.
For Voices from the Prairie and Humanities Iowa, this is Michael Carey hoping you continue to hear the music blooming all around you.
Biography
Thomas Swiss has lived half of his 48 years in Iowa. He is a professor of English at Drake University and writes criticism as well as poetry. His first book of poems Measure was published in 1996, his second Rough Cut was published in 1997 -- both by the University of Illinois Press. His latest book From Routledge (2000) is about the World Wide Web. In April 2001 he will have a web-based poem featured at the Digital Arts Conference in New York City.