Amy Kitchener's Angels Without Wings Foundation
Presents the 2008 Nebraska Senior Poet Laureate

ROBERT B. ROBESON

ROBERT B. ROBESON, 66, Lincoln, Nebraska, retired as lieutenant colonel after 27-1/2 years of military service with U. S. Army. As an aviator, he flew 987 combined medical evacuation missions in South Vietnam and was shot down twice. Is now a professional freelance writer. His sign is Virgo.

TO STEAL, OR NOT TO STEAL
(with apologies to Shakespeare's Hamlet )


To steal, or not to steal: that is the question:

Whether 'tis safer in the end to ignore

The pickoff move of a left-handed pitcher

Or to test a catcher's arm on a pitchout

And by testing beat them? To slide: to steal;

Once more; and, by a step to win a base

The thrill and the thousand cheering voices

That success is heir to, 'tis a grand reward.

Greatly to be wish'd. To slide, to steal.

To steal: perchance to win: but, there's a dilemma;

For in that attempt at theft what else may come,

When we have taken leave of the bag,

Must make one ponder. There's the risk

Of a tag-out ninety feet away;

For who could bear the taunts of hometown fans,

The opposition wins, the bold man rejected,

The pangs of victory lost, the umpire's call,

Thumb thrust in air, and the groans

That cascade from your own visiting dugout,

When your coach makes his anger known

With a bold oath? Who would bear that,

To sweat and endure under the public eye,

Is a dread that is worse than death,

The unfamiliar country of bush leaguers

No player desires, confounds the will,

And makes one think twice about attempting a steal.

Why be a goat when first is so safe?

Thus conscience can make a player a coward;

And thus the common thirst for laurels

Is hampered o'er with the cast of second thoughts,

And enterprises of great daring and glory

With this decision their fortunes turn awry,

And deny the claim of hero.

Robert B. Robeson
Lincoln, Nebraska