The Diagonal

Many years ago, I fell in love with the game,

for reasons I still recall,

it smelled good,

American even

night games,

especially in South Bend,

all was right with the world during a night game,

it was a prolonging of the day's excitement,

and an extension of a beloved pastime 

it was no pastime,

it was here,

present as ever,

threaded with notions of nostalgia,

tainted with the contemporary conflicts of ethics,

maybe things were not the same,

but it still smelled that way,

exempt from mortality,

made from nothing but optimism,

it was painful how much I loved it,

maybe it was for him,

but I liked to think it was something much more than that,

today even,

maybe more than ever,

it was home