Rubber City Soul: The Lyrical Tapestry of one LeBron James

Talent is given... Greatness is earned.  (Lemon Andersen, 2013)

Last night, LeBron James played 38 minutes, scored 17 points, grabbed six rebounds, dished off eight assists and stole the ball once, as the Miami Heat opened their title defense with a 107-95 victory over the Chicago Bulls. It marked his 11th season in the league. And it meant we, as fans of the association, have been basking in a decade of LeBron.

To commemorate that feat, our friends at Nike asked award-winning poet and playwright Lemon Andersen to compose a poem about the King, who happens to be the second player to have had a series of shoes as long as he has. You probably know the other one.

The result can be seen below.



The woven tapestry of words, can be read as follows after the jump:


RUBBER CITY SOUL
For In a land far away
Under a blanket of the stars
On a moonless night
a child was born in a kingdom
Of basketball gods
In a county they called
the summit
north of the capital
a rubber city
Where the Akronites run it
This child earned
Learned
the labors of his love
From watching his neighbors
Rise above hard work
At the local mills
Watching the sweat of their brow
Seeing his comrades growing up
Trying to conquer the hill
A steep field of wheat
worn from cleats and cold
pounding the bottom of their soles
Against tough Ohio winters
and unconditional vertigo
But he rose
from the dusk
of Elizabeth Park
And her projects
till the arrival of the dawn
rose from a high school phenom
Straight to the pros
never forgetting how
the sun set on Lake Erie
How the rough waters
of the spotlight
can ravage
Flow savagely along
always high tide
Knowing the odds against him
Yet his will to compete
Remained Hickory Street strong
For In all this love for his land
He learned to live
by the code of a warriors song
and glorious were the
wins stacked
to the back of the wall
banners dropped
from the top of the rafters
For all the world to see
this man child rise up
against the odds
under the Akronite philosophy
In his mind ever burned:
Talent is given
Greatness is earned.