To an Athlete Dying Young

When I first read the title 'To an Athlete Dying Young' I imagened an athlete dying when he first started a sport. When I read farther it had an amazing discriptive part about ,The time you won your town the race. It talks of people cheering, and bringing you shoulder high and setting you at your threshold down. That in essence, means like a throne to me. All athletes are on a pedestal in the peak of their careers. Then the poem switch gears and starts to get gloomy. The poem talked of fields where glory does not stay, so we know something happened. Either the athlete grew old and lived on or the athlete is dead. I see how it could be both because, an athlete can die in any one of us. But, the vibe I get from the rest of the poem is that he grew older and became slower, less athletic and someone faster and stronger replaced him. The poem says the name died before the man, that sentence is like a realization point in the whole poem. We realize that he's talking about how the man is still alive but the athlete inside of him is dead. No one remembers what he did, all they remember is a name that gets replaced with the next athlete. Glory doesn't last forever for athletes. It's brief and it leaves you to fend for yourself.