the field is below a steep grassy slope

the field is below a steep grassy slope,

which is long and even and above which is another field

and then the middle school and its parking lots,

which look like pieces of slate set in the grass

from the lower field, where they’re all that’s visible

of civilization, the rest being the reaching circumference of nature

like the forever-tiered stands of a stadium,

scotch broom and trees and the crowns of trees

and then hills like the textured waves of an ash black and dull green sea

all the way to the solidly-colored blueish gray

foothills of the olympic mountains.

it’s raining when we first arrive,

so cold and hard it’s almost sleet,

but by the time the game begins

it’s thinned to infrequent drops

and by the middle of the first half

the sky above us is a taut and flawless

flag of cerulean blue.

I play left fullback, switch positions with the left mid,

and then am subbed out so someone else can play.

from the sideline the game plays out before me

like an incurvate reflection of itself,

quiet and thinly miniature

under the dome of the surrounding expanse,

and for minutes at a time I gaze past the game

to a string of bucolic cumuli

coming east over the distant hills

so slowly its motion can only

be noted at the place where it passes them.

we’re playing the best team in the league―

they’ve already beaten the team that beat us, nine to zero,

the previous week―, but, their fluid and effortless

passing notwithstanding, we begin on almost equal footing,

because of the conditions, the weather and mud on the field,

and we’re learning by playing them, we can feel ourselves improve,

we can see our individual actions

forming a more cohesive whole.

the other team’s players are friendly

and, though it’s exhausting, the game is rewarding and fun.

the air is crisp and redolent, indicating a seasonal cusp

that could be autumn, but really it’s early may

and everything we want comes true,

our surroundings seem to be saying,

everything we wish for, in the end, is realized,

even if it means our dreams, with all their ambiguity and contradictions,

can only come true as part of a cumulative whole

in fleeting moments like these.

we lose five to nothing,

but we come close to scoring several times

and at one such point, in the second half,

as our forwards are pushing the ball upfield

through air shot through with mica-like golden light

and under a tiara of clouds of panoramic width,

the clean arc of a rainbow is unveiled in the atmosphere

above and beyond the goal toward which we’re driving,

bigger and more beautiful than anything I’ve yet described.