Alaska Senator Lisa Murkowski was on the Senate Floor praising the bravery and courage of the mushers and their dogs who competed in the Iditarod which was won for the 6th time by Dallas Seavey despite being penalized 2 hours for not properly gutting a moose that attacked his dogs. She also praised the 4 women who finished in the top ten and the 7 women who finished in top 20. Stirring speech even though she left out Cindy Abbott, a sufferer of a rare eye disease, university professor, and climber of Mt. Everest who in has competed in 5 Iditarods but was scratched in her first attempt due to a broken pelvis on the first day of the race but continued for 10 days before succumbing to the pain and hypothermia to be taken off the course and into a medical facility. I wrote the poem "A Woman's Place" as a tribute to her perseverance and courage.
A
Woman’s Place
Time
to toss the myth of members of the Golden State
As
laid back surfers with waves and sun only to motivate
Go
to Silicon Valley or here in the Tech Coast
To
find hard work and creativity as a common host
Put
to bed the myth of women as frail, not strong but only weak
Marathons,
channel swims, trans Pac sails, mountain climbs, and even combat women seek
Add
to that growing, grueling list, the Iditarod Race
Where
dogs and humans are fused in a freezing 1000 mile embrace
Irvine’s
Cindy Abbott should be a hero to all although maybe out of her mind
At
54, a mother and prof she enters the Last Great Race although half blind
With
special gear to see at night, a lot of weight to top the sled scales
Maybe
her children canines were already looking tired at start of trail
No
vials of vaccine to spur her on to sick children near death’s bed
Only
awareness of a rare disease that must not life’s spirit cause her to shed
Briefly
near the top ten, only to slowly fade
Facing
a never ending mushing up and down icy grades
Onward,
onward, “can’t” is a word only for fools
A
thousand miles of solitude where to find the finishing tools?
Global
warming or a fluke but on slush her balance on the first day failed
Broken
pelvis, hand swollen, no one but her dogs to hear her painful tale
Forced
to on hands and knees her dogs to tend
A
wrist so swollen it would barely bend
Bone
pounding on bone with each step, yet she refused to quit
New
meaning for the phrase chiseled into the Alaskan ice—True Grit
After
600 miles and close to 400 left to Nome
Dogs
fading and her being chilled to her inner bones
Shivering
and throbbing more each hour, losing the hypothermia race
With
frostbite eagerly awaiting the chance to shape her face
“I
have scaled Everest, mush on, mush on, as long as my “children” last
Must
link awareness for my disease to the serum run’s lifesaving past”
Dreams
die slowly, but reality 25 miles from Kaltag finally sank in.
After
24 hours resting on the Yukon, denial of pain no longer to spin
A
race checker found her and her dogs almost totally spent
Scratched
her from the course and to a clinic she was sent
Iditarod
once again has lived up to its name—the Last Great Race
But
in the halls of heroes this woman has earned her place
Broken
pelvis, blind in one eye, mush on one checkpoint at a time
Shed
from the vocabulary the word “can’t”, almost all goals you can climb
Pity
those jihadists who women’s achievements block and belittle their brains
About
as smart as racing the Iditarod in T-shirts and shorts with parkas to deign
©
March 15, 2013 Michael P. Ridley aka the Alaskanpoet
