Catch with Reuben

You took for gospel what I said,
holding the glove
in just the way I said you should.
Knowing I never could teach you enough,
I thought that when you understood
how carelessly moments disappear,
your mind might hold, from a distant year,
a fading day and us still here.

No matter that your legs are short,
your arms are small,
it will all be right in time.
This arm that never threw a ball
far enough to make a team
3 if more than nine came out to play
threw one into your hands today
from nearly sixty years away.