In football they measure forty-yard sprints. Nobody runs forty yards in basketball. Maybe you run the ninety-four feet of the court; then you stop, not on a dime, but on Miss Liberty's torch. In football you run over somebody's face.

(Donald Hall (b. 1928), U.S. poet, essayist. "Basketball: The Purest Sport of Bodies," Fathers Playing Catch with Sons: Essays on Sport, North Point Press (1985).)

Generation on generation, your neck rubbed the windowsill
of the stall, smoothing the wood as the sea smooths glass.

(Donald Hall (b. 1928), U.S. poet. Names of Horses (l. 15-16). . . Contemporary American Poetry. A. Poulin, Jr., ed. (4th ed., 1985) Houghton Mifflin Company.)

For a hundred and fifty years, in the pasture of dead horses,
roots of pine trees pushed through the pale curves of your ribs,
yellow blossoms flourished above you in autumn, and in winter
frost heaved your bones in the ground?old toilers, soil makers:
O Roger, Mackerel, Riley, Ned, Nellie, Chester, Lady Ghost.

(Donald Hall (b. 1928), U.S. poet. Names of Horses (l. 25-29). . . Contemporary American Poetry. A. Poulin, Jr., ed. (4th ed., 1985) Houghton Mifflin Company.)

Sweet death, small son, our instrument
Of immortality,
Your cries and hungers document
Our bodily decay.

(Donald Hall (b. 1928), U.S. poet. My Son, My Executioner (l. 5-8). . . Contemporary American Poetry. A. Poulin, Jr., ed. (4th ed., 1985) Houghton Mifflin Company.)

He packs wool sheared in April, honey
in combs, linen, leather
tanned from deerhide,
and vinegar in a barrel
hooped by hand at the forge's fire.

(Donald Hall (b. 1928), U.S. poet. Ox Cart Man (l. 6-10). . . Contemporary American Poetry. A. Poulin, Jr., ed. (4th ed., 1985) Houghton Mifflin Company.)

I was afraid the waking arm would break
From the loose earth and rub against his eyes
A fist of trees, and the whole country tremble
In the exultant labor of his rise;

(Donald Hall (b. 1928), U.S. poet. The Sleeping Giant (l. 5-8). . . New Yorker Book of Poems, The. (1969) The Viking Press. (Paperback edition of 1974 published by William Morrow & Company).)

Chipmunks jump, and
Greensnakes slither.
Rather burst than
Not be with her.

(Donald Hall (b. 1928), U.S. poet. Valentine (l. 1-4). . . New Treasury of Children's Poetry, A; Old Favorites and New Discoveries. Joanna Cole, comp. (1984) Doubleday & Company.)