Oh the lasses and lads

Of genius wells and recall buckets

Journeying to the mount of the mighty Zeus

Where a myriad of Olympians

With knowledge swords, bearing blades sharpened in light

Fence like the three musketeers

Athos, Porthos and Aramis

Courageous and free-spirited

In the mastery of grey knots and white ropes.

And on this stage, boys and girls

Transform from lanterns to lighthouses,

Incandescent, multiplying little photons

And illuminating the ambient. And a few

With mettle don medals, aurum, silver

And an alloy of copper and tin

To make elements of luster, lustrous.

Olympians are not just athletes of bronze and brawn

They too are adolescents armed

With knowledge blades, naïve mountaineers

Who in both victory and defeat

Reach the still lofty altitudes

Of personal triumph.