knowing the game

an epistemological inquiry into
the nature of racquetball

it begins with the invitation to play
something happens
a date and time are set
a certain inevitability emerges
in the minds of two seperate people

the day and time come
i prepare myself into the proper attire
and feel the insane urge in the gut
that everyone feels who is entering
into some form of applied competition
it is aggression
let's not beat around the bush here

it is a form of comaraderie
a form of entering into good natured friendship
with another human being
there is knowledge of the minds' regard
for what is truly good in the whole drama
of living out ones life
there is the knowledge of knowing another person
and in playing the game
knowing how the person is apt to play the game

there is a ritual of warming up of my knowing something
about what i must do to work up to the moment
when the game begins
a time of stretching out of knowing
the body knowing the strength
knowing perhaps the weakness

i know when i walk into the box
the rectangle in three dimensions
pairs of planes in apparent parallel
and angles in right angle to other planes
a contiguous rectangle into which i enter
and begin to bat around a ball with my racquet

then i begin to know what i must do
i begin to have a sense of the interiority of the box

and then the game begins
and i know i must be prepared
to leap on the first fast serve
either as the server or as the
one being served a ball against a wall
coming back at you at perhaps 100 miles an hour
or perhaps simply lobbed
with a bit of deception or spin on the ball

i hear the slap and the pop
of the ball against the wall
and i know the game is begun
and it will go until it is finished
and we might go three games
we might go five
but the games will take on their own
momentum

i know it is a little dangerous
i know i have been hit with a ball
slung off a racquet into my side
with a popp and a sting
an immediate sting
i know when i am stung

my desire becomes the probability of winning
my effort becomes the ability to score more
points against the wall
more impossible shots than my opponent
in this i am also aware that i may have to
accept failure
he may outplay me today

all knowledge
even the distractions of thought
which inevitably enter into the moment of play
my thinking about other things outside the game
the effort to concentrate on the game alone
all of this becomes the way of knowing
concentrated for an hour or so
in the context of two men
batting a little rubber ball around inside a
big rectangle of three dimensions

i know i will sweat