Poem: Two Ways to Maintain a Fence

Two Ways to Maintain a Fence

You may paint it
each season,
and keep your vigilance,
replacing each slat
as they begin
to falter,
so you are sure
the wall never fails,
and you are protected,
always safe
and alone,
always behind
the perfect picket
so all will see you
and say
how beautiful your fence
is,
missing
what lies behind.

Or you may let it go,
refuse to repaint
or rebuild,
let it weaken
in seasons of summer storms,
let it lean,
break,
rot,
and slowly
have it fall
apart
so animals,
children,
and lovers
may push it over
and walk in.

=================

The picture was taken in Wells, Vermont. You can click on it for a larger view.

Tom

Poem: Still Standing

Still Standing

The season behind you has been cold,
rabid with wind and rain,
a season of pain,
it's icy pellets
like knives to your heart,
cold daggers
that nearly pierced
your soul.

But you survived
and today, stand,
perhaps not tall and proud,
but secure
that no matter the wind,
your roots clamber deep
into the stone,
a foundation
stronger than the winds
of this season,
and the next.

=============

The picture was taken at the Hildene estate, the Lincoln family home in Manchester, VT. You can click on it for a larger version.

Tom

Thoughts: A New Computer

Recently, for reasons that are unimportant, I ended up getting one of the new tiny laptops they call "netbooks" for free. It's a cute little thing, half the size of my regular laptop. I have to admit, I thought of it as a toy, but as I looked at what it actually was, all the specifications, RAM, storage, etc, I realized it's actually more powerful than the massive IBM tower I've had at home as a second computer for several years. So I am in the process of cleaning off the old one and making this tiny thing my second computer, which will actually run most of my Quarry House (what used to be Summit Manor) creative work.

So off the desk goes all the paraphernalia and tangle of wires and such that were part of the IBM tower, all replaced by this tiny little netbook. Simplicity lives.

Thinking on this, I realized this has been a pattern in my life in recent years. Three years or so ago, I found myself having to downsize considerably. I loved my big old home with acres of land and hated to leave, but I soon found not just acceptance of my smaller apartment, but an appreciation of a smaller, simpler life, how it gave me time and how it meant I spent less time thinking about the acania of taking care of everything there and more time to think on spiritual, creative and emotional things.

I've done the same thing in my work. I used to juggle way too many things, both my "day" job managing a broadcast integration operation in Washington, DC., and my free lance creative work, which was all over the map. As a result of the same changes that spawned my move, I slowed my creative work down to the few things I loved to do (write, teach and photograph). Less money, but simpler, less stressful, richer in pleasure.

My move to Vermont slowed my life down too. I have a house, but its small and simple, easy to take care of, with little land. Living in a rural area, there's less to buy, and no one cares what you have or don't have anyway. And too, I have always been active in my church, maybe too active, and I am now in a place where I church-searching and am not juggling the constant activity of teaching, singing, and serving on too many committees - all of which are good things, but too many of which can become a barrier to real spirituality. I'll become active again when I find a new church home, but this go around, I'll be more selective, and preserve the spirituality that faith should bring.

The things that spawn all these changes were involuntary (With the exception of the move to Vermont) and things I really didn't want at the time (Again, except for the move). But they have helped me go back in time to a simpler, richer life. Not rich in stuff and appearance, but rich in spirit and soul. Doing less and having less leaves places in life for other things, that are more lasting, and more joyful, in a deep, satisfying way.

So I'll enjoy my unexpected new little computer, for all the same reasons I enjoy my unexpected life. I'm a pretty grateful guy these days.

Tom

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The picture is of the wall behind my desk in my Washington, DC office. For the past year it's been the only thing on my walls. You can click on it for a larger version.

Poem: The Soul of the Tool

The Soul of the Tool

There are faster ways to do this,
to cut and carve the unyeilding wood
to something soulful,
to unleash the angel
deep within your broken heart,
and discover the dancing balance
of tenderness and strength
needed
to create not a fortress
but a cradle.

Yes, there are quicker paths
than the slow, hard work you do,
day after day,
with ancient tools,
outdated but effective
in carving
an elegant
eternity.

============

The picture was taken in Williamsburg, Va. You can click on it for a larger version.

Tom

Poem: Birthday Prayer

Birthday Prayer

Late on the night of your birthday,
long after the cake,
after the warm gifts,
after the dinner and the play,
after the celebration is done,
and everyone save you sleeps;

In the last hour of the night,
as you lay on the sheets,
and let the cool breeze brush your skin,
and you breath

the air fragrant with flowers
you cannot quite recognize,
aware you are living in a time and a place
that is not quite home,
yet not foreign,

in a life unexpected, unwished for,
yet gracious as only God can be,
full of promise and joy,
an adventure as unfamiliar
as the scents that waft on the air.

And you pray,
a new prayer of thanksgiving
in July.

===========

The picture was taken in the Episcopal Church in Wells, Vermont. You can click on it for a larger version.

Tom

Poem: Leap

Leap

Far too long you have lingered near the shoreline,
easing into the clear green waters slowly,
safely lowering yourself inch by inch,
feeling the torturous cold again and again,

until finally you are in swimming
amazed that once in,
the waters are perfect,
that you can feel the sun

on your back as you stroke
across the quarry. But today,
for reasons that defy you,
you climb to the marble precipice,

and not allowing yourself to think,
you leap,
and discover the exhilaration
of falling into the water's embrace, amazed

that the moment of courage,
is not a moment after all,
but a beginning.

=============

The picture was taken at the Dorset Quarry, the nation's first marble quarry, now a favorite swimming hole in the area. My son and I spent the afternoon there today. You can click on the image for a larger version.

Tom

Poem: somewhere

somewhere

somewhere,
you traded nature
for design;
looking for lessons
for teaching them;
simplicity
for artifice,
passion
for survival;
you traded
joy for a shadow of itself;
honesty for practicality,
and your soul for mere religion,
but when
at last the avalanche struck
as it always does,
and all that was
so carefully built
collapsed,
you sat at the base of the rubble
realizing
the rare luxury
you were given,
to rebuild, without the trades,
to simply be,
in trust that in the end,
that is, and always was,
enough.

============

The picture was taken at Thomas Jefferson's "other" home, Poplar Forest. You can click on it for a larger version.

Tom

Poem: Quarry Flowers

Quarry Flowers

The slate quarry rises next to your house,
mountains of grey stone, hard and sharp,
the abandoned slag of stone, left behind
a generation earlier, when the mines closed

and the hardscrabble work
that fed the town was suddenly gone.
Since then the pit filled with water,
clear and cold, and the roads

through the quarry have been closed.
A few trees have somehow found root, but still
you can see the harsh rawness from miles away.
Everything about it cries "abandoned",

poignant and dark,
and yet, if you come close,
and walk past the first walls of stone,
and look past the ugly scar you see from a distance,

and walk into the ridges,
you will see them: Flowers.
Not just one or two, but a symphony of color,
a reminder that there is no scar

that cannot be healed,
no matter how badly we try.

============

My son and I walked through the abandoned slate quarry that is on 3 sides of my house this afternoon. (A picture of a part of the quarry is below). There is ugliness in a mine that had ripped the earth apart for it's treasure and then was left, but given time, there is beauty too. I was struck by the walls of wild flowers and green that had grown over much of the slag heaps, and from that, this poem. You can click on the pictures for larger versions of the images.

Tom

Poem: Greens at a Vegetable Stand

Greens at a Vegetable Stand

You look at the colors,
vibrant and rich, the color of life,
and you understand how painters
and poets go mad, trying

to paint something so perfect
that to begin,
is to fail.

===================

The picture was taken earlier today at the Dorset Farmer's market in Dorset, Vermont. You can click on it for a larger version.

The greens themselves came from the Brown Boar Farm in East Wells, Vermont.

Tom

Poem: The Mystery of Gates

The Mystery of Gates

You stand at the gate, nearly heartshaped,
the walls around it stone and high,
the wood planks thick and aged,
ringed with hardware from another age,
and wonder....

Is it there to keep you out,
to protect some perfect soul
from your infidel's imperfection,
to prevent ruin and chaos
from entering the holy ground;

or to hold something else,
something dark and sinister,
secret and devouring,
in?

===============

The picture is of the Kali Temple Gate, in of all places, Disney World's Animal Kingdom. You can click on it for a larger version.

Tom

Poem: Five AM in Washington DC

Five AM in Washington DC

You wake, far away
from your home, far
from the birds that wake you
each morning, their songs
like chamber music, delicately woven,
bright and lively;

far from the soft New England light
that so often wakes you gently
like a lover's kiss,
warm and kind,

far from the singing wind
that blows softly in spring,
rustling the trees
that surround your home like a cocoon,

far from your love,
her soft voice a memory,
clear, so real you imagine she is here.

And indeed, she is,
as are the sounds of birds, the light and the morning wind,
all part of you even as you travel,
stamped on your soul,
carved into your heart,
as permanent as marble,
tender as silk.

=============

The picture is of the Pawlet Community Church in Pawlet, VT, a few miles from my home. You can click on it for a larger version.

Tom

Poem: Dusk

Dusk

Come.
Sit.
Rest.

Listen to the wind
as it blows gently
down the mountain
and rustles the leaves
in a lullaby.

Close your eyes
and breathe
the sweet fragrance
that has waited here
for you all this time,

waiting for you
to come,
and sit,
and rest.

==============

The picture was taken in a friend's garden near Sandgate, Vermont. You can click on it for a larger version.

Tom

Poem: Flowers in the Window

Flowers in the Window

Flowers in the window
remind you of gardens,
and how life blossoms within
even in dark rooms; how

life flourishes only where we choose,
only when we choose,
and nowhere else.

=========

The picture was taken in Wells, Vermont. You can click on it for a larger version.

Tom

Thoughts: Everyday Grace

I rarely include writing of other's here, but this struck me as something worth reading and contemplating:

Examination of conscience is an ancient practice among Christians. In recent years "conscience" has been expanded to include consciousness. We look back on our day, focussing not so much on faults as on feelings, on what moved us. We look back on gifts as well as gaffes. There is a place for guilt, meaning a judgment that some things we did may have been stupid, self-indulgent, cowardly or unfair. There is a bigger place for gratitude, for intimations of affection, and for the moments that lifted our hearts and helped us to sense God's closeness and the sweetness of being alive.

It comes from Sacred Space, a virtual prayer site I frequent. It strikes me as a perfect example of "everyday grace", something we often don't give ourselves.

The picture was taken in Wells, Vermont. You can click on it for a larger version.

Tom

Poem: Raw Wood

Raw Wood

The furniture is in place, but
it has taken weeks to open the wall
between the two homes,
to transform the tiny rooms
into a spacious space where light
and life move freely throughout the day.

Such a task! For like therapy, this demolition is not
the stuff of wrecking balls, but a careful cutting away
to open the spaces, yet still preserving the beams
that give your walls strength. There are wires
to avoid, or re-route, and the uncertainty
of an old house, the danger of ruining its soul.

But at last it is done, and then comes the rebuilding,
slow and methodical, piecing together each new frame,
each new bit of trim, is' raw wood with it's fresh cut color
you are suddenly loath to paint, for it symbolizes a vision
created by destruction and rebuilding both, to something
new, fresh, alive, a bringing together of two houses into one,
your home, and heart unite, fresh, and singing with light.

================

The picture is actually of my dining room, as seen from my living room. Some of you (my friends) know the place I bought in West Pawlet, Vermont was a duplex when I bought it and I've been opening it up to a single home, including knocking out the wall between these two rooms. You can click on the image to get a larger version.

Tom

Thoughts: On gifts

Monday evening I finished a wedding present for a pair of new friends I have made up here in Vermont. It's a few days late, but fortunately, they were not at all put out when I drove it by that night.

For several weeks, I have had it in my mind that I wanted to do a wedding poem for them, linking it to a photograph. The problem was that they were new friends. I don't have a long history with them, and that made writing a poem that was anywhere close to their heart difficult, but over the past few weeks, I have slowly learned enough of their life's journeys to begin, and then, in of all places, Disney World, I discovered an image that gave me the title and concept to build on.

Over the next week or two, as the wedding day approached, then arrived, I wrote and tinkered until I got it where I wanted it - something especially done for the two of them, so personal and private that it will likely never appear here unless they give their OK down the road somewhere.

Yesterday afternoon I spent with my love, putzing around antique stores. In one of them, I saw several hand-stitched samplers, and it occurred to me how, for so many, the idea of created gifts is no longer part of our every day life.

In the eighteenth and nineteenth century, many home grown seamstresses, writers and artists created something unique and handmade for people on their birthdays, Christmas, weddings and other special occaisions. Because nearly everyone came from a background where a home-grown gift was understood for the work, effort, focus and sacrifice it represented, such gifts were valued for the time and effort that went in to them. In a real sense, we realized that though perhaps not perfect things, these were gifts of the heart and hand, and they were valued deeply.

Today however, many of us never MAKE anything. And anything we make can probably be done "better" in some factory in China or Thailand. But there is, I think, still a place for the created gift, the gift you make, be it art or music or even the perfect Rice Krispy treats. For some reason we've gotten away from giving those kinds of gifts and go more towards the store bought (with requisite return tag if it's not just the perfect thing), or even money.

There is nothing wrong with the gifts we give, fresh from the stores in their perfectly wrapped boxes, but neither is there anything wrong with the the heart-given creation. They each have value, albeit value of different types.

A month ago, my son turned 11. I bought him a couple of presents, and wrapped them. I am famously bad at wrapping presents. Famously bad, as in one of the family jokes. But one of his gifts, I managed to wrap well. Really well. So well, he had a hard time believing I had done it. And for a moment, something had been lost, that knowledge of the personal touch. He was actually dissapointed at his perfectly wrapped box. That's when I knew he certainly got it - that things done personally need not be perfect to be of great value.

One of the things I am discovering here in Vermont, is how much of that personal touch still lives here. Perhaps it is the artistic nature that pervades the area, or the slower pace of life (and trust me, Southerners like me get a reputation for slow, but we are not in Vermonter's class.), or the fact that as a group, Vermonters seem to have an apprecation of time vs money that is a healthy thing.

Whatever the reason, I am glad for it. As someone who likes creating and giving personal things that take more time than money, and as someone who at times gets those same kinds of gifts. Somehow, it makes life richer.

Tom

PS - The picture is of some locally produced maple syrup. Did you know it takes 40 gallons of sap slow boiled and distilled over wood fires to make a single gallon of syrup? But there is no comparison to real maple syrup to the store bought mass produced version we so often buy. The difference is worth the extra money, and carries with it, the gift of time.

Poem: At the Dorset Market

At the Dorset Market

You stand at the market stall,
enthralled by the color, entranced
by the possibilities of each fresh vegetable
stacked raw on the table.

Other walk by,
eyes dimmed by pain and sadness,
their lives full of shades of feeling,
their vision nearly monochrome,

and though the bright colors are in front of them,
they walk past, afraid, for they know
colors fail, fade, and sometimes die
before they make the food their own,

and rather than lose the color,
they move on, losing the moment of beauty
that could be theirs.
But you stand, and reach out, sure
the vibrancy will not last,

but grateful that for now at least,
it is before you, and you claim it,
and the joy of passing color,
for your own.

==============

The picture was taken this weekend at the Dorset Farmers Market, in Dorset, VT. You can click on it for a larger version.

Tom

Poem: The Journey Beyond

The Journey Beyond

You lay, still, eyes open yet seeing
not what is in front of you,
but something far away
a distant landscape of the heart,

a place long unexplored,
full of mystery and fear,
hope and distance,
a distance you once felt uncrossable,

but suddenly close,
so close you can feel the heat
of love's jungle, warm and moist
around you,

lush and green with a path
clear and inviting, even
if you are unsure
where it leads.

============

The picture was not taken in a place like Laos or Thailand, but at Disney's Animal Park. Still it captures the exotica of travel. You can click on it for a larger version.

Tom