Odes

SUNDAY, AUGUST 01, 2004

As a former writer/journalist, I am drawn to words to describe big events, impending or past. Right now Ironman Canada is the biggest event looming in my life. Thus, I took pen in hand (OK, put fingers on keyboard) in an effort to capture what we will be experiencing at month’s end.

Looking for inspiration, I turned to my poetry library. Hey, there’s some pretty stirring stuff here, I thought. Why write something new when I can rip this stuff off?

Here’s what I found and adapted. In each case, I ran out of time/patience, so I did not finish anything. But maybe I’ll find more inspiration and will finish some of these in the future (or maybe you’ll be hoping I just drop the whole thing).

--Lee Crumbaugh

ODE TO THE CANADIAN DEAD

With apologies to Allen Tate

(Ode to the Confederate Dead)

Row after row with strict impunity

The bodies are nameless in the night

The wind whirrs without recollection

In the riven transition lanes the gel wrappers

Pile up, of nature the casual sacrament

To the seasonal eternity of the death march;

Then driven by the fierce endorphins

Of exercise to their election to the vast troop

They sow the rumor of Ironman.

After midnight, on August 30, is desolation in the tent

Of a thousand acres where these memories grow

From the inexhaustible bodies that are not

Dead, but feed on IVs, row after exhausted row…

JASON IN THE MOUNTAINS

With apologies to Donald Davidson

(Lee in the Mountains)

Walking into the shadows, walking alone

Where darkness falls on the desolation of Lakeside Road

Up to the finish line…

Hearing the voices

Whisper, Hush, it is Jason Mayfield! And strangely

Hearing my own voice say, Good evening, boys.

(Don’t get up. You are early. It is long

before midnight. You will have long to wait

on these cold bleachers….)

The young boys have time to wait.

But weary Ironmen faces above their newly minted medals

Move no more on road or path,

And I am spent with long-ago swim and new cramps…

AFTER IRONMAN CANADA

With apologies to James Russell Lowell

(After the Burial)

Yes, training is a stalwart anchor;

When skies are sweet as a warm Coke

On the bike it cranks so steadily,

In its miles of confidence building.

And when over steep hills and breaking waves

The bedraggled triathlete is driven,

It may keep our headset to the tempest,

With its grip on our wheel, on our aerobars.

But, after the bonk, tell me

What help offers it to the feet in our shoes?

Still true to the memory of sub-nine-hour goal

Deep-sixed in a 15-hour trudge?

THE SONG OF PENTICTON

With apologies to Henry Wordsworth Longfellow

(The Song of Hiawatha)

Should you ask me, whence these stories?

Whence these legends and traditions,

With the odors of sunscreen,

With the sweat and salt of the eleventh hour,

With the rowed bikes of transition,

With the rushing wind of the descent,

With their frequent retellings,

And their wild exaggerations,

As of Ogopogo in the Lake?

I should answer, I should tell you.

“From the forests and Richter Pass,

From the lake of Okanagan,

From the land of Penticton,

From the land of Barcelo Road,

From Yellow Lake, McLean Creek and 2km past the Jesus sign,

Where the red-jerseyed maple-leafed r.s.t’er

Sucks Gatorade at the aid stations,

I repeat them as I heard them

From the lips of Rolf,

The bar-maker, the engineer-cum-Ironman.”

Should you ask where Rolf

Found these songs so wild and wayward,

Found these legends and traditions,

I should answer I should tell you,

“In the momentary passes on the bike leg,

In the changing tents of the swim transition,

In the footsteps of mile 23,

In the retellings of the awards dinner!”

BOB MINA

(John Henry)

When Bob Mina was a little fellow,

You could hold him in the palm of your hand,

He said to his pa, “When I grow up

I’d going to be an Ironman.

Gonna be an Ironman.

When Bob Mina was a little baby,

Setting on his mammy’s knee,

He said, “Richter Pass on Highway 97

Is gonna be the death of me,

Gonna be the death of me.”

One day Eric Weiss told him,

How he had bet a man

That Bob Mina would beat his triple-chain-ring Trek down,

Cause Bob Mina was the best in the land,

Bob Mina was the best in the land,

Bob Mina kissed his beam bike,

The Fred mounted his Trek,

Bike rack held Bob Mina’s trusty steed,

Was the biggest race the world had ever seen,

Lord the biggest race the world had ever seen.

Bob Mina passing on the left side,

Fred Trekking on the right,

“Before I’ll let your triple-chain-ring Trek beat me down,

I’ll hammer my fool self to death,

Hammer my fool self to death.”

THE BALLAD OF TRICIA RICHTER

With apologies to Stephen Vincent Benet

(The Ballad of Marco Polo)

Tri-Baby, curious woman,

What drove you to seek for Ironman?

Perhaps it was youth, for I was young,

Perhaps it was my mother’s tongue

The Speedo I had never seen

Till the years of my age were turned fifteen,

For I was just born when she went away

To race beyond the bridge of the bay,

And, when she returned, we were strange and shy,

Meeting each other, she and I,

For a lost athlete’s eyes looked out at her,

My father’s, who DNF’ed in some long-ago race,

And the tan lines on her back were great and I was sure

That mom, she had been at IMC.

Tri-Baby, how did it fall

That at last you followed her, after all?

When the world shut in with Computrainers and treadmills,

They would spin and run and talk to each other, night on night,

While the water lapped at the beach start

And they hardly knew I was there

Except as a shadow on her running shoe

When the wind before the morning blew

And the great house creaked like a worn-out triathlete’s bones

Tinley and Smyers,

Talking of marvels Canadian renown,

Talking of IMCs still to do—

Their talk was of chicken soup and headwinds and light sticks,

How could I help but not drink it down?

How could I help but thirst and burn,

When they opened the transition bag filled with gear

And looked at the marvels and race numbers hidden there

And said, “It is time and we must return”?

Tri-baby, what did you see,

When at length you came to IMC?

I know the pass of the endless heart rate

Whose winding ascent never ends,

And the hot sickness of the over-gelled noon, saltless.

I drank the sports drink of the sponsors,

I saw the spectators gape at me,

I have gained medals and photos

And T-shirts that belied my effort,

But what can I tell you that will make you see?