The Poetic City: “Sitting Beside the Golf Course in Audubon Park at the Intersection of Being and Doing”

Jun 25, 2018 • Creative Writing

The old Meditation Walk in Audubon Park (photo by: Derek Bridges)

Sitting Beside the Golf Course in Audubon Park at the Intersection of Being and Doing

Sitting under the oak arbor

next to the golf course

practicing the art of dissolution,

I am slowly absorbed by a

tangle of leaf, branch, and light…

Then, without warning,

I am yanked from my reverie

by a whiz of white and

the thump-dee-dump

of an errant golf ball that

came to rest beside me.

The unexpected blur of white

cutting across the green backdrop

startled me with the pleasure

of a shooting star.

I savored the sight of the ball’s

bounce in three graceful arcs,

each one smaller than the one before…

until the bounce became a dribble,

the dribble became a roll,

and the roll slowed to a gentle stop.

In the rhythm of the bounce

I heard the beat a triple step,

the very one that resides at the

heart of East Coast swing…

and I felt moved to dance.

Not knowing the layout

of the course I had no way

to judge the virtue of the shot

and whether it would bring pleasure

or pain to the one who launched it.

From my vantage point

beneath the oak arbor

the shot was, and will always be,

an occasion of grace and beauty.

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