A Poem For Your Thoughts

The Price of Excellence

For those who weren't there, to see you try and fail

They may misunderstand, how to weigh the scale

The measure of your craft, they blame upon your birth

That your genes are godly gifts, and they alone your worth

Knowing not the pain, you've suffered to prevail

Where others slacked and quit, you continued on the trail

The nights you stayed awake, grindstone to your nose

Sharpening your grit, to stand above your foes

Hours spent on end, when practice came and went

Polishing resolve, removing any dent

Repetition nigh unending, mettle forged desire

To climb to grandest height, atop the tallest tower

To look not down upon, the everyman's pursuit

Instead to stand among, the greatest of your route

To have your name recalled, to hear it chanted loud

You paid a greater price, than most would cough aloud

These simple folk of longing, see only talent not conviction

Blinded by impatience, they are bound by tight restriction

They pose and offer words, to belittle simple faults

For if they looked within, they would shy from the results

Jagged rough and scattered, they cannot understand

The weathering it took, for the mastery you command

To see this proven theory, to register the truth

Look to heroes past, their scars are bloodied proof

A battered hardened will, spending sacrifice as cost

Know the price of excellence, is measured by what's lost.