Listen to the world’s best poetry read out loud.

In memoriam for my father-in-law, Phil Rouleau

My virgin shot

from the first tee at the Royal Regina

took off straight for the spectators,

hit a tree,

bounced back

with a crack

like a nail gun,

and landed thirty feet behind me.

Here’s the thing about golf: It’s impossible

to exaggerate how badly you’ve done.

So it’s the sport that’s most like life.

It takes a certain kind of mind to play the game.

To love it is something else again.

I wanted to change the world – and get things right.

Phil wanted to love the world as it was – and do his best.

Thirty feet is not a long way – until it’s backwards.

The ball nested in the grass, the egg of shame.

The silence was so full, you could have walked on it –

and Phil must have because I didn’t hear him

until he stood beside me, a new ball in his hand.

Yoda said, Do or do not. There is no try.

Yoda never played golf.

Yoda was wrong.

For proof, I offer Phil’s wisdom that kept me in that game,

and in how many more I cannot say since then:

That happens, he said, Try again.