Sports Saturday
I don’t multitask well with sports, so only now that the NBA finals, the World Cup, and Wimbledon are over have I looked at the baseball standings. I was amazed to discover that my team, the Baltimore Orioles, are in first place in their division. I don’t expect it to last but I’ll enjoy it in the mean time.
In their honor, here’s one of Emily Dickinson’s numerous Oriole poems (I know of at least three). As you read it, see if you can anticipate how I apply it to the O’s:
To hear an Oriole sing
May be a common thing—
Or only a divine.
It is not of the Bird
Who sings the same, unheard,
As unto Crowd—
The Fashion of the Ear
Attireth that it hear
In Dun, or fair—
So whether it be Rune,
Or whether it be none
Is of within.
The “Tune is in the Tree—”
The Skeptic—showeth me—
“No Sir! In Thee!”
Dickinson is talking about how a poem will move some people while leaving others cold, but here’s the baseball application: To most people, the Baltimore Orioles are just a common team. To a fan, however, they are divine. The “Fashion of the Ear”—which is to say, the predilection of the spectator—determines whether a team is dun or fair, whether it is filled with mystical promise (like a rune) or not. We give the team credit for the joy we feel—the tune is in the tree—but the skeptic points out that it is actually we the crowd who are bestowing meaning.
So we root, root, root for something that is within ourselves.
Further thought: The poem shares some ideas with a Wallace Steven poem that I particularly like, “Peter Quince at the Clavier” (which I write about here).
