Rinat Dasayev
Dasayev’s save against Scotland
Off a glancing goal-bound header
In the 1982 World Cup
Was like a release in the fabric of space
And a save I now save, in tribute.
Gordon Banks
How do you save the shadow
Of a bouncing ball?
Raise your hand up to God.
How do you save a moment in time?
You save it forever.
Thomas N’Kono
Le chat noir had to save his team
While saving his race
In Europe’s arenas of racism.
He gave hope that hate could end
A goal worth saving.
Passing a barbershop I see my father.
He’s reading his newspaper, as he often did.
He looks trapped by the mirrors
In which he worked, like a living specter.
I ask for a haircut and shave
But my father doesn’t recognize me.
I’ve grown too old to be his son.
As he cuts my hair, I feel the same touch
And his same skill with a razor.
We talk about sports, as we always could.
After the haircut I pay and leave.
I don’t wake the barber from his dream
Or myself, from my own.
Since childhood I’ve been unraveling
The spools in nonna’s sewing box
Needles for the handiwork of the moon
Pins for the sky against the sky
Thimbles for the chalice of the invisible
Measuring tapes for night’s endless garment
Scissors for the unseeming of space
Scraps for the patchwork of time
The white thread from the black
And the blue and white threads
She passed through the eye of a needle
Unspooling her own life in shadow
Let’s save the world,
Let’s play the earth into its net of stars,
Let’s put one goal up for humans
And zero for the enemies of time.
All you goalkeepers, let’s save the goal,
Let’s save the earth in its net of stars,
Push asteroids clear of the post
And intercept each crossing moon.
Football fans and players,
Together we can save the earth,
We can pass love through a ball,
Kick ignorance to a lower hell
And play with joy on celestial fields.
Diego Maradona
Who was Maradona?
He didn’t even know.
He kept trying
To be so many things.
He was dervish and dancer,
Panther and pirate,
Magician and juggler,
Monster and deliverer,
Animal and Angel.
Then one day a ball
Hung in the air,
Defying gravity, and he died.
Paolo Rossi
Scored through the eye of a needle,
Into the mouth of a fish
And the fishermen’s nets.
He scored through laundry lines
Like day moons in sunny blue,
And in the memories
Between fathers and sons
He scored into forever.
Salvatore Ala 