Payback

by Tom Kelly

Robert Burns, he of sainted memory, in his ode, “To a Mouse,” wrote a line that is quoted again and again in all sorts of circumstances, the one about the plans of mice and men and how they often go astray. There is a following line in that poem that you almost never hear quoted, the line that says,“And leave us naught but grief and pain for promised joy.” That line is an accurate and pungent description of the spring season of 2010. I didn’t know it at the time and I would not have believed it if an angel with a flaming sword had appeared at the foot of the bed and so informed me, that after opening day the rest of the spring season of 2010 was going to be downhill all the way.

207 pages, Hardcover

First published December 12, 2010