Modern Olympian Ode #52 by Michael Ceraolo

 Modern Olympian Ode #52 (2021) Heart of Silver

The twist on the cliche is an upgrade in this case

In Rio, at just twenty,

Maria Andrejczyk of Poland

missed making the medal stand in the javelin

by less than an inch,

which

gave the promise of greater things in Tokyo

But the path to glory is rarely straight:

like most athletes she had to overcome injuries;

unlike most athletes she also had to overcome bone cancer

to win the silver medal, a nice story

But the nice story would not end there:

she decided to auction off the medal

and donate the proceeds to charity;

she would have the memory

and her place in the record books

She looked around for a fundraiser to support

and quickly found Miloszek Malysa,

an eight-month-old fellow Pole

born with a heart defect that needed

expensive surgery to correct

A Polish supermarket chain won the auction

with a bid of a hundred twenty-five thousand dollars,

then in a gesture of magnanimity

almost matching Maria's,

returned the medal to her