Reminiscing about Trolls and Baseball

The way each rock hits the tree’s bark as I throw it
reminds me of summers spent playing baseball
in the backyard. When our bats connected to the ball
with a satisfying metal crack. It would fly,
bouncing off the wooden fence that surrounded our yard
and turned it into our own personal battleground.
We would play till the sky grew orange
and then dark. Until the cinnamon-air
from mother’s kitchen
drew us running back in.

At night, our backyard became the domain of trolls,
the ones my grandfather told tales about
from his home in Norway.
Not like the little dolls that lined my friend’s bedroom shelves,
With their hair swirling upward in neon colors,
but hulking, ugly brutes that roamed the woods and ate children
like us. Their very roar could shake the Earth
itself. They would hurl boulders
at trees, like the cold stones I now held in my hand.
I can see now what it would be
like to be a monster, making that first kill
with the precision of an All Star Player
or a creature on the hunt.
I imagine standing in the footprints
of the trolls, where they once stood long ago,
in this very backyard, watching our human game
with eyes of curiosity.
Maybe it was the only thing that spared us.

There were times we would play
even as the noises of the forest grew
louder. Until only the meandering fireflies illuminated us
like the glow sticks we waved as pretend swords
And the lights would die out until
we were left with nothing
but our imagination.