Old footballs limp into eternity,
Or they’re kicked by the wind
Into weedy fields and lost forever.
When they become deflated
Angels sleep on them
Like children sleep in their beds.
Every old ball, like me, thinks
Roundness is relativity in motion,
The essence of a ball
Is to put the earth in a child’s hands,
To round out the hard hours of living,
To bend space around happiness,
And to plant the seed
Of eternal recurrence in time.