TEAM FLAME, a Hermit Crab essay in a baseball lineup card

Nine At-Bats in a Lineup Card

BATTING EIGHTH

Number 21, Catcher, BURNING CIVILIZATION

(Coaches note: all we ask, coyote catcher, is put the ball in play)

Now another heat covers the land.

Political heat and the burning outrage economy.

The modern world, accelerating into bigger combustions and:

faster news
faster anger
faster collapse
faster forgetting.

And on July 4, every child with a sparkler held too close to dry grass, spark to flame to fire.

There is another way the desert teaches:

Sit still, like lizard.
Drink deeply, like mule.
Wave quietly, like sage.

Listen longer, like cactus.
Watch shadow move over stone, like coyote.

Slow your expectations,

bring the heat down,

throw a knuckler,

don’t blame the eighth hole batter.

How could number 21, Burning Civilization, possibly lay wood on a glowing sphere disappearing into leather, a fireball cauterizing the catcher’s glove, animating the engineer’s wet dream like the poetry of internal combustion: squeeze, suck, bang, and blow, the Freudian ID in a knuckled muffler.

Tomorrow, batting ninth, pitcher, number 68, Flame Thrower.

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^{Burning excerpts from Stories Emerge Like Bears, a Cornerstone Press forthcoming lyric memoir in 2028 exploring wilderness, memory, labor, rhythm, motorcycles, drumming, fire, and the sacred atmospheres and languages of place.}