Soccer Until Dusk
Print this Page- By Mark Brazaitis
- Country: Guatemala
- Dates of Service: 1991–1993
- Related Publication: Uncommon Journeys
See the lesson plans for this poem: 1, 2.
My father laughs when I tell him
how in Santa Cruz Verapaz
men quit work at noon, and after lunch
play soccer until dusk.
My father is a reporter,
follows senators around,
sits in the White House press room;
the president calls him by name.
In 30 years, he has written thousands of stories,
small testaments to the lives of other men.
Before he divorced my mother,
before computers,
he would go afternoons into the den,
sit at his desk,
and type deep into the night.
I would fall asleep to the rhythmic thwack of keys,
my bedtime song.
From time to time he complained about working too hard,
spoke of wanting an alternative to 12-hour days.
In the months after the divorce, when our lives
seemed to have been sliced open like fruits,
spilling our secret juices,
he saw Gandhi and thought of giving everything,
house and car and savings, to my mother.
When I tell my father about the men playing soccer,
he follows his laugh with a stern look,
as if to ask whether I think kicking off work after half a day
and chasing a ball around a field
is any way a man should spend his life.
I don't argue; I never have.
Instead, I remember how I followed Pablo
and his father one afternoon to the stadium,
sat in the concrete stands as the men huddled,
picked sides.
I could have played; I'd been invited.
But soccer had never been my game,
so I watched as the men ran up and down the field,
their shirts off, their backs lit up by the sun,
and listened to their curses and shouts
as I would to a piece of exotic music,
strange sounds from another world.
About the Author:
Mark Brazaitis served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in the small town of Santa Cruz Verapaz, Guatemala, from 1991 to 1993. In his essay "'Magic' Pablo," Brazaitis described Santa Cruz Verapaz as a remote farming community, lacking many of the conveniences of the urban capital, Guatemala City. (To read "'Magic' Pablo" and accompanying lesson plans, see the Peace Corps publication Voices From the Field.)
As a Peace Corps Volunteer, Brazaitis taught English to high school students and trained local farmers in the use of advanced agricultural techniques. The author of the widely acclaimed The River of Lost Voices: Stories From Guatemala, Brazaitis received the 1998 Iowa Short Fiction Award. He was a National Endowment for the Arts Fellow, and his stories, poems, and essays have appeared in the Sun, Notre Dame Review, Atlanta Review, Western Humanities Review, Beloit Fiction Journal, Shenandoah, and other literary journals. His writing has also appeared in the Washington Post and the Detroit Free Press. Brazaitis teaches English at West Virginia University.