WEN: 24A9BE
Exhibitor Name: Lisa Roberts
Division: Poetry (Adults)
Class: 01 Poetry
had protected her precious Odysseus yet again, and made him the fool.
With a roar of rage and futility, he grasped the sword, the gift of mighty Hector, and without hesitation, he plunged upon it, exultant in the end. Odysseus tasted bitter bile that day. The armor, a game for him, had cost his friend his life, and he grew sick of heart. Now the war grew even colder. He longed for home, all his eloquence he bent toward ending the war, honoring Ajax, no longer deceiving for personal gain, no longer misleading friends for baubles. At last when war closed its weary eyes, Odysseus turned to the sea, leaving Ajax buried on a foreign shore. Now remained only the voyage home, and an end to trickery. No more the cunning man, he would recline at home with wife and son, and rest from lies and tricks. O, how could he know of the years to come? How could he foresee the forces ranged against him, the very gods who would wrest his honesty from him and force him back upon his bare wits? The lesson learned from Ajax, the ten years of war, the pain of his cleverness, the honed edge of his intellect, all would forge him into a new man who would gain home despite all adversity. A man with a new kind of strength. A man who would say whatever needed to be said, but who would also do what needed to be done. A man of words, and of action. Odysseus surveyed the horizon of the never-ending, wine-dark sea and saluted the memory of Ajax.
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