The baseball season kicks off today with the Red Sox-Yankees game tonight, and Rudi and I are celebrating Opening Day with a trip to RFK (in an hour) to see the Nats and the Mets face off in a final scrimmage before they play their first official games tomorrow.

I can’t believe how exciting it is to have baseball start up again. There’s something so optimistic about the beginning of a season, when your team (no matter how poor last season’s record) has just as good a shot as another to win the pennant and the World Series.

Baseball brings back hope after a dark winter, just when nature is starting to send out tendrils and shoots. It’s a way of reminding us to be glad we’re alive.

In honor of that seasonal optimism, I give you the first poem I ever memorized.

[Poem 254]
by Emily Dickinson

“Hope” is the thing with feathers –
That perches in the soul –
And sings the tune without the words –
And never stops – at all –

And sweetest – in the Gale – is heard –
And sore must be the storm –
That could abash the little Bird
That kept so many warm –

I’ve heard it in the chillest land –
And on the strangest Sea –
Yet, never, in Extremity,
It asked a crumb – of Me.