Published: New York Baseball Poems (1999)

I found his grave
below the Hempstead plains
and touched his old cold
marble tombstone with my hand.

I felt his name
and saw the bold letters
JOHN MONTGOMERY WARD
standing out years
after the stone cutter
himself must have died.

I stood back and heard
silent cheers come and go
in the autumn wind.

I stood until my limbs
grew cold and thoughts
from long ago flashed
into my imagination.

I shivered until all was
quiet on these greenfields
and I ran like a hunted
quail looking for a place
to find peace again.

John Montgomery Ward by Robert L. Harrison ©