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Days Of Power
Dedicated To Michael Karl
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The Eve Of “Compete!”
(Processed. Examined. Weighed.)
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As the doors to Tucson Strength open,
A rookie lifter, I step into check-in chaos.
Michael is quick to assess: “I’ll wait for you in the car.”
I cool my heels in a huddle. Seated next to my stance,
A woman lifts her eyes to me.
By way of intro, “Joelle.” “I see we represent the aged.”
Laughing, feeling a bit less alien because of it,
I advance to the table. I open my kit.
Primed, and in his prime, a muscle man examines it all:
Socks, knee sleeves, the thick black belt, singlet, shirt.
All regulation. I pass.
Question: “Competing raw?” “Yes.”
More Questions: “Rack heights?”
“Opening lifts…Squat? Bench? Deadlift?”
Once provided, waved away.
Into the undressing room…stripped down to essentials.
“You can be nude if it helps.” 180…the zenith, on the cusp.
I make the cut.
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Coda
(There Are Two Steves)
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Cutting loose, my kit is soon sunk within Michael’s trunk.
We pace the plaza to a store for vintage books,
The flagship, the last survivor of insolvency.
It is cavernous, but also like the cavity of a brain enlarged.
Each book has a lineage of readers
Who pass it from their hands to our hands.
Michael and I lose ourselves perusing through the aisles.
I pull and search a book of names.
Joelle: “Jehovah is God” or “God will be willing.”
I reach for a hardback the size of my hand,
Hesse’s “Siddhartha.” It is spined with a yellow ribbon.
Generations ago, I gifted this novel to my teacher, Bede.
Yes, this will be the one. Mine now.
Michael wants to explore in a resale store.
I see it immediately, the tau, the top of a Coptic crozier.
Michael explains: “This is Ethiopian. No two are alike.”
The proprietress wraps it in news of the day,
Passes it from her hands to mine. “Sold.”
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“Compete!”
(9 To 5 With Winners)
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Here, I am not bold, just spined with hope.
Reassurance arrives at the 8 AM meeting:
“How many are lifting for the very first time?”
Young and old alike are raising their hands.
I am listed in flight 3. Even my wait is a warm up.
Jesus! Handler Steve is making me squat to the floor.
For support, from behind he is holding me close.
Handler Gilbert does the rest: the racks, the practice, the brief.
Steve nudges me forward towards the platform. Gilbert smiles.
Dispatcher Sam and her husband, Firefighter Denny
In the front row have a video cam at the ready.
I make my first lift. I clearly hear, “That was a classic squat.”
Rookie apprehension is lifted by my joy. I seize the day.
Indeed, Jehovah is God. As they hand out the medals
I say to Joelle, that vet aged 86, “I bet they call your name.”
Nonplussed, wry, she replies, “Everyone else is dead.”
Then, they call my name. Shunned I am not. Stunned.
God is willing to make me elite.
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Coda
(Victory Is Starting Over)
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Amen.
Coach Chrystal and I pair for a pic with the medal.
I don’t take its blue ribbon off. I fear it will disappear.
On Sunday morning, I wear it to breakfast with Michael.
The Bisbee Breakfast Club is eccentric enough to understand.
Michael sees me safely back to my casita in Green Valley.
Back in its cavity, I think things through.
I think of you, Bill McClimon, my high school nemesis.
Yesterday, I prayed to you, now that you are Saint McClimon.
As you answered, your debt to me is dissolved. RIP.
Maybe, I can finally be your friend. Only now am I worthy.
I sense him laughing. “You think being a jock is all that?”
“Celestial heights to Steve, news for your day, it surely is not.”
“Just wait.” This is why I vowed never to write him into a poem.
Oh well. Once again dimmed, I am not dim witted as I age.
Nor am I unarmed (though I mean no harm).
The book by Hesse is at my side. I place the crozier’s golden tau
Above the coppery clock, a higher power than time.
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The Nobel Laureate
(Finis)
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I would rather the final expression be that of a genius.
Let Hermann Hesse end my poem with words that are his.
I open his book to where the yellow ribbon divides two pages.
From the one page I read:
“Since he was really and truly like someone freshly awakened or like a newborn, he had to begin his life all over again from the beginning.”
From the other page I read:
“Now he was only Siddhartha, the awakened one, and nothing else.”
Bede Smith, Bede, take heed that I heed.
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Steven Golden
March 30th Thru April 3rd, 2026
Green Valley, AZ
stevengoldenpoetry 