The Boxer' Climb Poem by Randy McClave

It takes pure guts to climb inside the boxing ring
Where your skill alone is all that you bring,
There is no teammates ever on your left or right
You are there all by yourself ready to fight.
You bounce up and down impatiently in the corner
As you wait in the ring you are the foreigner,
Across the ring is the opponent that you never seen before
Pretty soon you're going to engage in a great war.
What's going through your mind no other person knows
As your excitement and anticipation grows and grows,
And if any other person knew your current thought
It would be how you wished, that you had already fought.
You put your life on the line for the entertainment of others
But, of course ultimately that is your druthers,
You trained and worked and waited for this night to come
Now soon everyone will know where you came from.
You now stand waiting inside the 10 x 10 battlefield
Where blood and pain and victory the fighter will yield,
There is also dreams, fantasies and and also hopes
Much respect to the warrior who steps through those ropes.

Randy L. McClave