prayer, energy, trust. From Gina
------------
I turn my iPad on and tap the Masters app.
The iconic piano notes of that trademark song
swirl around me and I relax into my recliner
ready to watch threesomes make their way
through Amen Corner. The music is a like a prayer,
soft and easy, just what these guys need to get them
through holes eleven and twelve, the two hardest
on the course. Pars are very acceptable here.
From a distance the colors in the crowd resemble
the azaleas and I can almost forget they're there
with their shouts and cameras and folding chairs.
It's just men, green fairways, and white golf balls.
My mom and dad started playing the game later
in life after raising us kids. I can understand how
they loved the serenity of the course after working
all week. It gave them extra energy to enjoy
getting older and helped them fight the cancer
that inevitably made them stop playing. That
damn cancer. That fucking sand trap no amount
of swinging could get them out of. The announcers
pause and the song that is The Masters swells,
again, and I remember the last time my dad
watched it. It was a couple months before
he died and I was in Florida visiting him. We sat
in the lanai chatting about the game and players,
he tethered to oxygen, me trying to breathe for him.
Afterwards, I went to Publix and bought Maine lobsters
and had them cooked for us. I can still see the melted
butter on my dad's chin and the smile on his face
as he devoured every last morsel of that delicacy.
Back in Georgia the crowd groans as a ball hits
the water, proof that nothing, nothing can be trusted.
No comments:
Post a Comment