Stolen Moments

This poem is my reflection on the end of this Olympic year. While many positive things occurred over these past 12 months (joining the best swim team in Canada, learning that those I idolized are normal people too, improving my stroke over the year more than I had in the 3 previous years, improving my time to make the senior national qualifying time, participating in the Canadian Olympic Trials, placing 47th out of 113 at my first national meet, and seeing 5 of my teammates make the Olympic team), there are a couple of stories that deeply affected me, and this is what I am reflecting here.

At the Olympic Trials, many past Olympians sat in the audience. The media found them and introduced them to the rest of the pool. One of the people they found actually was not an Olympian, despite having made the Olympic team. He made the team in 1980, the year Canada (and the United States) boycotted the Olympics, and he never got to go.

There are other stories I thought of as I wrote this, but the one that really stuck to my mind was that of the final event of the 2004 Olympics in Athens, Greece. It was a very special moment to be had, to be the winner of this event in the place where the Games began, the first time they were held there since the beginning of the Modern Games. And this moment was a tarnished one.

I dedicate this poem to all the athletes of the world, recreational, amateur, professional, and the like. May your goals come true and may you never have to experience a stolen moment like these.

-(*)-

Stolen moments

never to be redone

an abrupt end to your journey

you fell short of the finish line

Time and effort and concentration

you improved your skill

your craft in details fine

your hope set your will

Stolen moments

never to be completed

never to be undone

and of these moments

cheated you were

of the glory of the sun

And all that work and effort

concentration and strong will

could not prepare you for

the sharp turn of events,

your goal left unfulfilled

An impossible dream

almost realized

taken from your grasp

never again to earn that chance

Your humbleness of character

and strength of noble heart

your aim, desire, burning flame

that set you apart

The cost of time and energy

of friendships on hold

robbed from beneath your feet

all this, tarnished, spoiled and stained

You hear the words that whisper,

“never to be”

“that was your chance”

all of it gone up in smoke

at the smallest glance

And to the one that took your place

the question will remain:

“Would I have won the race

if not for that stolen moment?”

To both of you, the pain is great

and blame seems to be in vain

you can’t put in words the way you feel

this moment can’t be explained

To your loss, there is no shame

just a sense of emptiness

and from your shaken soul you leave

incomplete, unrelieved, thieved from your claim

time will not repeat, the flaw

of your stolen moment to shine.

-(*)-

*Lunar Eclipse*