From the Quote of the Week Files, April 27, 2009

Welcome the to Quote of the Week. As we have mentioned, because April is National Poetry Month we have been featuring poems as the Quote of the Week. Below is a story of how this week's poem came to be.
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A couple of week's ago, my father and I were having a bite to eat and the TV was on to a rerun the 2005 Ford Ironman Contest in Hawaii. We weren't really paying much attention to it until they featured 3 contestants who were just starting the running part of the contest even though many had already finished the race. One contestant was 80 years old, the other was a women competing on one leg and the last was battling ALS. All were running well into the night. My father, watched intently and suddenly he was inspired to say,

Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.
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As some of you my know, my father is battling Alzheimer's Disease and it was a very moving and humbling experience for me as I listened to him recite this stanza of William Ernest Henley's poem, Invictus. And it was another reminder to me that while Alzheimer's may be stealing his brain cells, it isn't stealing his soul. So, this poem's for you Dad!
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Invictus

Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find me, unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate;
I am the captain of my soul.
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Wishing you a most beautiful day, wherever this may find you!