Nenikekamos!

First of all, thank you Dick and Greg and Mom and Dan for your poems.  They keep me going!

I am posting this poem on Josh’s birthday, but let me preface with a little explanation.  In the last four months I have been writing a journal, maybe a book, about my road to the marathon, and one of the chapters retells the story of Philippides, the first day-runner who ran to Athens from the battlefields of Marathon, the Fields of Fennel, to report on the soldiers’ success.  When he made it to his destination he burst into the room and declared, with his final breath, “Nenikekamos!” or “Joy, we have won!”  Josh, this is the spirit you have been teaching us for years.  Happy birthday, brother.  May you have many more miles to run!


Nenikekamos!:
from you to me

If every day is a gift
it doesn’t seem fair
Whenever there has to be
the days one must battle for
But let each breath that you breathe
fill you with the air
Of revelry and the spirit
of wanting to breathe it more.
Let every day you’re alive
be given to you
And every battle you fight
be an opportunity
To know the giver is good
who sees you through
To celebrate your life
and declare it victory.

Let every breath I breathe
lead me to believe
In heaven’s hold with the spirit
of wanting to breathe it deep.
Let every day I’m alive
be mine to receive
And every battle that I survive
be mine to keep.
Let me know the grace is good
that sets me free
To celebrate the gift
and declare the victory.