Aptly named at the end of the road:
Paradise.
Crossed off the list of places
you’d been.
You, sled master in yards
of sloped streets in
lowlands of Puget Sound,
with long-awaited,
short-lived snowfalls.
The paved Paradise lot. A mile
up the mountain. Your sled set free
from our trunk’s clutter.
Your frozen face, bare in an
otherwise bundled body, froze me,
transmitted its fears.
I trailed your gaze to the peak,
the way pockmarked by ice,
crevasses. Rocky outcrops of
Nisqually Glacier between it and us.
I said, “You think you’re going there?”
Your silent reply: a barely thawed nod.
I said an encouraging word, “No.”
You’re not going that way. Not this day.
You loosened up, had a blast
in safe, groomed snow,
maintained for your play,
young adventurer.
A few years later.
At Paradise again, a friend along.
Seasoned hiking boots replaced
saucer sled as
your way forward.
A day warm enough for shorts,
tee shirt, exuberance.
Off in a straight, uphill line,
your idea, I sensed, to scale
the summit.
I said, “You think you’re going there?”
Your silent reply: a confident, vigorous nod.
I said a discouraging word, “No.”
You’re not going that way.
Not this day.
You scaled back plans, had
a blast on tame, settled snow
within your parents’ sight,
young adventurer.
Among Steve Vittori’s published poems, “Tinker to Evers?” appeared originally in the journal Spitball in 1989. It later appeared in the anthology At The Crack of the Bat, edited by Lillian Morrison, in 1992, and on baseball-almanac.com. Vittori is originally from southern New Jersey, but has lived on the Kitsap Peninsula since 1978, and in Gig Harbor since 2000. He has been employed full-time as an engineer (now retired), and a part-time community college instructor (welding technology).
