Putting
for Par
Take your time.
Line it up.
Stroke is everything
here, everything. Concentrate.
Nothing but you and the ball.
Forget the water hazard
on the last hole, forget
the sand trap on nine,
the dogleg right
that will break
your heart on fourteen.
Forget mortgage payments, your
wife, ex-wife, children.
Forget most of all,
the blue-gray heron that
rises like clumsy smoke
from the river of your
sleep each night.
Feel the sun on your neck
and remember why
you are here; the pleasure,
as gratifying as cold beer
in August, as palpable
as the shirt stuck
to your back, of doing one
small thing well
and forgetting the rest.
Copyright © 2002 Peter Klein
