John Updike - Tao in the Yankee Stadium Bleachers lyrics

Tao in the Yankee Stadium Distance brings proportion. From here the populated tiers as much as players seem part of the show: a constructed stage beast, three folds of Dante's rose, or a Chinese military hat cunningly chased with bodies. “Falling from his chariot, a drunk man is unhurt because his soul is intact. Not knowing his fall, he is unastonished, he is invulnerable.” So, too, the “pure man”—“pure” in the sense of undisturbed water. “It is not necessary to seek out a wasteland, swamp, or thicket.” The opposing pitcher's pertinent hesitations, the sky, this meadow, Mantle's thick baked neck, the old men who in the changing rosters see a personal mutability, green slats, wet stone are all to me as when an emperor commands a performance with a gesture of his eyes. “No king on his throne has the joy of the dead,” the skull told Chuang-tzu. The thought of d**h is peppermint to you when games begin with patriotic song and a democratic sun beats broadly down. The Inner Journey seems unjudgeably long when small boys purchase cups of ice and, distant as a paradise, experts, pa**ionate and deft, hold motionless while Berra flies to left.