In those thin hours, light casts long across the fairway,
and I, hunched over a screen like a secret kept,
finally feel the curves, the whispers in green,
each tilt and roll, the mystery bent beneath my hand.
How strange it is, this game of shadows and grip,
to spend whole years learning the distance between
what I meant to do and what I’ve done—
this swinging arc, repeating like a tolling bell.
Out there, the pixel grasses bow in phantom wind,
and I’ve studied every blade, each coded blade,
to know the course by heart, its hidden traps,
its edges worn where I have failed before.
Yet here I am, just shy of that perfect game,
a breath, a blink, a hand's tremor shy.
I can feel it now, the way masters might,
each club a compass through an uncharted time.
But like sand spilling unmarked through a glass,
the days slide by with each missed shot,
as if the score—this minor god—keeps hold
of all the swings, the narrow, secret strokes.
And so I linger, one more round, one last try,
chasing a mastery too close, too far.