for Andrew
Scientists say that any swinging object
has a “center of percussion”
that place on it where when you strike
something in this “sweet spot”
you have the “optimum in power and control.”
This is especially true, they say, of tools with handles.
I know this to be true
from driving 16 penny nails into two-by-fours
with a framing hammer or splitting good,
straight-grained, knot-free logs of red oak for firewood,
but especially with a baseball bat
when you hit a ball right
on the button and there is that good
clean moment at impact and your hands don’t sting
and you feel it travel right up
your arms through your shoulders then down
your spine to some unnamed spot
deep inside your self that can only be felt
and not explained in scientific terms.
They say you can find a sweet spot even on a pencil.
Will this one strike something
clean and true and without knots
or will it only sting my hands?
***
Bruce Ickes worked as a teacher in Maryland high schools for 30-plus years. Occasionally he bestirs himself to attempt to write something someone else might find worthwhile. His work will soon appear in the spring edition of Spitball magazine.
