Winners Risk All

Winners Risk All Aware, after spending the day teaching Reminiscing, remembering, reliving And interpreting events reaching The wizened children of my own age. We of the 1930s and 40s Seem to have spent our lives On adventurous sorties Of claiming, defending, inventing The stuff of which men and women today Put together new adventures made of Claiming, defending, inventing in a way That seems bloodless, aimless and wispy. We who are now on the frontier of old age Can still taste the salt of the bloodlust From the memories of the wars we wage Alive still in the annals of our mind. Have not given up on the battles we led We have not given up the ground we stood on. Our causes are anything but dead Standing aged and worn, lined with time. Though the energy is gone and strength is bereft Compared to the younger set There is more victory, more joy in the life still left Than in bloodless games with no winners or losers. One day we will all go down to the grave Leaving only memories behind among the living But this century's old ones go down brave As victors with the decision to the winners. by E. Marshall Evans