The Hammock Papers: Ah.

24 August 2024

Ah.

AN ODE to THE CORNER

Read the roll of those that played

Count every face; the crowds that made

A church of light, a field of dreams

A century of us; our team

Farewell the sun, and bar the gates

As fades the final roar

The brightest home; our eager youth

Like summer is no more

But ah, the blue and green of it

The light upon the field

The noise, the smell, the crowd, the sky

Our common heart revealed

The many, one; in summer’s sun

We pulled the runner home

A grassy sea, an English ‘D’

The athletes’ skill a poem

The memories stray in twilight’s fade

Was Boone at first, or third?

Did Kaline stem the Cardinal tide?

Who was it caught The Bird?

But recalled exactly in our hearts

We loved our time, this place

100 years, let’s go! … play ball!

The thrill … this park … its grace

Echoes carry; springtimes fly

Now autumn’s shadows yield

Forever winter drapes the cry

“Long gone!” across the field

If there be ghosts that know the land;

Called back to hallowed scenes

My father and my father’s Dad

Still hold this field of dreams

That section there, in leftfield high

My father and I came

And then, in turn, I brought my son

To our eternal game

So read the roll of those that played

Count every face; the crowds that made

A church of light; a field of dreams

A century of us … the team

Tom DeLisle

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WOLFGANG AMADEUS MOZART

"When I am, as it were, completely myself, entirely alone and of good cheer – say travelling in a carriage or walking after a good meal, or during the night when I cannot sleep – it is on such occasions that my ideas flow best and most abundantly. Whence, and how, they come I know not ; nor can I force them. Those ideas that please me I retain in memory and am accustomed, as I have been told, to hum them to myself. If I continue in this way, it soon occurs to me how I may turn this dainty morsel to account, so as to make a good dish of it. That is to say, agreeable to the rules of counterpoint, to the peculiarities of various instruments etc. All this fires my soul, and, provided I am not disturbed, my subject enlarges itself, becomes methodised, and defined, and the whole, though it be long, stands almost complete and finished in my mind, so that I can survey it like a fine picture or a beautiful statue at a glance. Nor do I hear in my imagination the parts successively, but I hear them, as it were, all at once. What a delight this is, I cannot tell."

MARCUS AURELIUS

"Is your cucumber bitter? Throw it away. Are there briars in your path? Turn aside. That is enough. Do not go on and say, 'Why were things of this sort ever brought into this world?' neither intolerable nor everlasting - if thou bearest in mind that it has its limits, and if thou addest nothing to it in imagination. Pain is either an evil to the body (then let the body say what it thinks of it!)-or to the soul. But it is in the power of the soul to maintain its own serenity and tranquility."

VINCENT van GOGH

"What am I in the eyes of most people? A nonentity or an oddity or a disagreeable person — someone who has and will have no position in society, in short a little lower than the lowest. Very well — assuming that everything is indeed like that, then through my work I’d like to show what there is in the heart of such an oddity, such a nobody. This is my ambition, which is based less on resentment than on love in spite of everything, based more on a feeling of serenity than on passion. Even though I’m often in a mess, inside me there’s still a calm, pure harmony and music. In the poorest little house, in the filthiest corner, I see paintings or drawings. And my mind turns in that direction as if with an irresistible urge. As time passes, other things are increasingly excluded, and the more they are the faster my eyes see the picturesque. Art demands persistent work, work in spite of everything, and unceasing observation."

DAN CAMPBELL