An Ode to Five Rings

I cannot help but wonder what this week's events say about us as a people.

All the pomp, the ceremony, the money spent for running, jumping, throwing and catching,

The gold, the silver and the bronze that hangs on the neck for but a few minutes.

The year of work, the pain, the sweat for 5 minutes of fame or total anonymity.

Where is the gold, the silver and bronze for the ones that inspire and teach us to better ourselves.

For the ones who feed the hungry and clothe the poor,

Who comfort the dying and heal the sick,

For the grandmother who with joints screaming, raises her child's children,

For the mother who awakens before the sun to cook a meal for her children,

And stumbles late to bed having checked their homework trying catch a few hours rest?

Where is the 15 seconds of fame for the one who brings fresh water to the parched,

Who gives safe haven for the thrown away children to sleep in peace,

Who teaches right and wrong to children with absentee parents,

Who feeds the furred, feathered and scaled from their own table,

Who leaves their country to aid the war torn and shell shocked?

Where are their gold, silver and bronze medals?

Perhaps they are lost in the mail.

Somewhere there sits a mail truck, engine overheated and tires popped from the weight,

It labors to move, to deliver its burden of those gold, silver and bronze medals,

To the ones who built the foundations for the lives you now take sole credit for.

But you cheer the ones with a moment of fame for a talent based in the physical

And shun the ones whose spirits build a Universe worth living in......