The Race

Sorry to my regular readers for my last post. It was posted in a particularly bad bout of pain related depression and as such is at odds with several of my other blogs. I have decided to leave it up as it shows a side of me that I do not normally blog about and as such might offer some comfort or even balance to readers who suffer from chronic pain. I guess the message to take away is we all have times when our emotions and our ailments get on top of us.

I made the mistake of overdoing things yesterday and as a result I ended up in a world of pain and didn't get to sleep, somewhere in the midst of that I allowed self-pity to dominate my feelings.

Today, having spent several hours using the mental skills I have mentioned in previous blogs (‘The Pebble' and ‘Truths’) I am back in control of my feelings. As a penance I am going to post a poem called ‘The Race’, which was written to remind me that I should not allow myself to become the victim.

When I wrote the poem I was thinking of two people who I admire a great deal, Oscar Pistorius the South African sprinter known as the Blade Runner and Chris Moon an old Army colleague who now speaks as a motivational speaker. Both of these gentlemen have excelled in their lives in spite of their disabilities. To me they are the epitome of strength of character and courage, both of them stressed the importance of getting on with life in spite of difficulties and avoiding becoming the victim.

The Race

“Take – Your – Marks”
The figures bend and kneel,
search out the line and all is still.

Fingers
“Set”
Knees rise, fingers and arms take the strain,
Power checked.

The gun rises,
Eyes fixed, ears pricked, all is still;
Save one finger….

Crack.
Legs drive into the blocks,
Bodies hurl forward heads still down.

With each step the pace increases,
Heads come up to see the goal.
And now focus….

Measured Strides…..
The race is on,
Feet and heart pound in time

The tape draws near
Concentrate ….. and….. dip
Arms flung back the chest broaches the line.

The long drawn breath,
The look to see who won,
and the joy to feel a race well run.

John Carré Buchanan
03 May 2010