Surely they must have been wrong about suffering
Once or twice the old Masters
Surely a perfect batting average can’t be
The signal criterion for mastery
The year’s pageantry always awakens
Suffering a perennial feature of the scene
Failure bitter loss the harsh oblivion of unsignificance
The road always winds past the contagious hospital
The other side of the heroic stadium
The quiz show cheater always declaims
That he flew too high on borrowed wings
The swift runner tamer of horses
Might never come back from his ruptured Achilles
And if the tableau seems grand or stately
Or perfectly proportioned
Behind and out of sight in the tunnel or the bullpen
Shrewd Brueghel or arch-clever Daedalus
Devises builds and directs
The rough and fragile spectacle