The Beat
His name was Matt. By high school he was running.Fast? Fast enough, yeah. But distance was the thing.Some days I’d stop to watch him in the fieldsStretching north of the dirt ribbon where we lived—I’d watch sometimes half an hour or more,Just that exact same pace, like a metronomeOn human legs, keeping the beat, the beat.He wasn’t very tall, five-nine maybe,And he wasn’t ripped, but in bright daylightEvery part syncing, all you saw was muscle.On weekends, fair weather, he’d run six hours,Start at seven, still going after lunch.He joined the Air Force, no Viet Nam for him,Or that was the thought, never contradictedThat I heard of, but his parents moved when he left.We’d played together when we were littleBut never said a word throughout high school,Like he had quit talking to keep running,Talk some kind of shackle around his feet?I have no idea what became of him,And I’m not sure why he haunts my memoryExcept maybe he was the closest I cameIn my distracted youth to the mystery,If that’s the right word, people mean by saint—“Purity of heart is to will one thing.”* *Sören Kierkegaard
His name was Matt. By high school he was running.Fast? Fast enough, yeah. But distance was the thing.Some days I’d stop to watch him in the fieldsStretching north of the dirt ribbon where we lived—I’d watch sometimes half an hour or more,Just that exact same pace, like a metronomeOn human legs, keeping the beat, the beat.He wasn’t very tall, five-nine maybe,And he wasn’t ripped, but in bright daylightEvery part syncing, all you saw was muscle.On weekends, fair weather, he’d run six hours,Start at seven, still going after lunch.He joined the Air Force, no Viet Nam for him,Or that was the thought, never contradictedThat I heard of, but his parents moved when he left.We’d played together when we were littleBut never said a word throughout high school,Like he had quit talking to keep running,Talk some kind of shackle around his feet?I have no idea what became of him,And I’m not sure why he haunts my memoryExcept maybe he was the closest I cameIn my distracted youth to the mystery,If that’s the right word, people mean by saint—“Purity of heart is to will one thing.”* *Sören Kierkegaard