Sports Poems from Hoosier Poets

Prayer to Peyton Manning

Norbert Krapf

(Indiana Poet Laureate 2008-2010)

Hey, hey, Peyton Manning,

please throw me a pass.

You know my moves by heart.

Two sure hands are waiting.

We’ve taken so many steps

so well together, for so long,

we can do our dance in the dark.

I feel the touch of your finger-

tips spinning the pigskin

toward me even before I make

my cut, turn the corner,

look back for your spiral.

The hometown crowd knows

we move as one wherever

we play, home or away.

They know you always lay

the ball like money in the right

slot for me to fold it in, carry

it safely, take it to the bank.

Hey, hey, Peyton Manning,

please let it go, release,

follow through. No team is

better coached. We know where

the goal line is, how to cross it,

step up to the next level,

enter the Promised Land.

The people are with us.

We are all of one faith,

recite the same litany:

throw me the ball, Peyton,

please throw me a pass.

From Bloodroot: Indiana Poems (2008).

Reprinted with permission of Indiana University Press

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