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WEDNESDAY
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A Thought for Today
No time given to work is lost.
This
One Does It For Me!
Hello Ken:
I hope you are well and happy.
I was thinking maybe the new visitors to the Wednesday flight plan will
enjoy reading "Can we have our ball back?" I don't remember if you
mentioned it before, I really like it.
With smiles, your e mail friend,
Elsa Marie
Good to hear from you again,
Elsa Marie, and thanks for a great choice.
I love this piece, too. It's one of the many, and probably one of the most
popular, new works we've featured on this site which is as good a reason
as any for new readers to spend some time browsing through the archives.
Just click on the archive link at the foot of this page and read on!
You're sure to come across some gems.
Thanks for your contribution, Elsa Marie.
Got a favorite McKuen song, poem or memory you'd like to share? Drop me a
line telling me about it (kenb@mckuen.com)
and I'll publish it right here one Wednesday soon.
- Ken, Johannesburg,
South Africa, November 5
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ROD McKUEN
CONCERTS
ROD
McKUEN APPEARANCES
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Bryan Adams o
Mark Breland o
Eugene Debs o
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Bill Walton |
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Time is a runner, and not with good intentions.
Silence with friends is comfort.
The quicker the love affair, the faster the yawn.
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CAN WE HAVE OUR BALL BACK? |
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Mr. McKuen. We are great fans of your work, and we've
started a new secret poetry magazine. We'd love a poem from you for a
future issue. Would you please send us a poem? Take care. can we have our ball back?
Dear can we have our ball back?, Thanks for asking, the answer is yes. Here it is. Cheers, Rod
RE: CAN WE HAVE OUR BALL BACK?
By Rod McKuen 3/31/01
I wish I could give back to you the first
ball you threw so long ago, the one that
wore out, got mislaid or stolen. The one
you tossed into the trees or sent way up
to the top of the tent that rolled down the
side and under the slide, gone forever.
If ever a ball deserved to come back
it was that one that wont be retrieved
by what we believed or believe. The
trouble with balls is the trouble with all
those things left behind is some other
time or mind set. We always forget to
forget them in time to move on, get on
with what ever whatever is. That stuff
we gave up ball games for, forgot all
the names for as we traveled from
there to here. We do not select our
memories they choose us. Why not a
ball, an agate, a sled instead of the
boy who went away, the girl who broke
your heart at eleven. I wish I could give
you your youth back or some truth
good enough to take its place, erase
recollections of lost balls and days.
I wish I could give your ball back. I can't,
anymore than I am able to show you the
road you took up and out so long ago
you can't remember taking it. But there
is something I have been making for you;
a ball you can hold and wind and throw
from this day on. Take it along to where
ever you go and know it is given with all
the love I had for it while I had it. Only a
ball, round, small, not your ball of old but
yours now to play with, or if you choose
hit over the fence, over the tent and lose.
Rod McKuen 3/31/01 First publication |
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