Poem: Dark Walls

Dark Walls

The first thing you notice
is that there are no mirrors.
There are no windows,
no

glass to let in light, only
walls, solid and dark,
no matter what color
paint

is lavished on them.

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The picture was taken at the Thomas Nelson House in Yorktown, Va, which is actually a bright and cheery place well worth visiting, despite my photograph. You can click on the picture for a larger version.

Tom

Poem: How I See It

How I see it. 

In my eyes
you are younger,
smoother of skin,
wiser,
far more interesting,
thinner,
smarter,
stronger, more
desirable,
and more powerful
than you will ever believe.

This is not blindness.
This is love,
and it is more true than truth.

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This is both a love poem, and a poem about how God sees us. Finding a picture to do both was hard, so in the end, I picked something that is simply a picture, not meant to illustrate the poem, per se. This shot is of the window sill of the house I lived in while in Virginia. You can click on it for a larger version.

Tom

Poem: Ruins they say

Ruins, they say

The stones lie in plain view
for historians and other writers of fiction,
half standing, half fallen,
an imperfect patchwork

half fallen to time and folly,
the focus of speculation,
guesswork and false truths.
Ruins,they say, forgetting

the beauty of what has survived, or
the possibilities of what remains.

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This was inspired by a few days of being in Virginia, where I lived for several years, and visiting with friends who have seen me through divorce and rebuilding a life.

The picture was taken at Stonehenge, in England, while visiting with my kids. You can click on it for a larger version.

Tom

Stubborn on Vision, flexible on details.

Read these words from a Forbes Interview with Jeff Bezos, CEO of Amazon. 

Levy: You’ve also given $42 million to the Long Now Foundation for the development of a giant clock designed to last for 10,000 years. Does that project relate at all to what you’re doing at Amazon?

Bezos: It does fit into my view. Our first shareholder letter, in 1997, was entitled, “It’s all about the long term.” If everything you do needs to work on a three-year time horizon, then you’re competing against a lot of people. But if you’re willing to invest on a seven-year time horizon, you’re now competing against a fraction of those people, because very few companies are willing to do that. Just by lengthening the time horizon, you can engage in endeavors that you could never otherwise pursue. At Amazon we like things to work in five to seven years. We’re willing to plant seeds, let them grow—and we’re very stubborn. We say we’re stubborn on vision and flexible on details."

Reread those last few words, stubborn on vision, and flexible on details. They are so powerful. It's why, when we are looking at our lives, work and businesses, we need to spend so much time up front figuring out what our vision IS.


The Bible says, "A people without vision will perish.". I believe this pertains not just to churches (which is where the verse is most often used, but also to individuals, organizations and corporations.

A vision is based on ideas, big pictures, principle, not details. Often, we cripple our vision, doom it to failure because we get hung up on the details. We don't let God, The Universe, Karma, whatever you believe guides the universe work because we corral it into the details.

Think about it!

Poetry: Old Home Days - Rupert, VT

Old Home Days - Rupert, VT

Night falls
again,
and the mountains turn black and cold
against the failing sun, black'
except for the sharp color
of carnaval lights,
their song shattering the silence
with unaccustomed hues,
a strange thing
for this small outlying village,
known more for quiet,
for stone ovens baking bread,
for the hard work
and rough hands of crasftmen and farmers,
for broken hearts and spirits
and the children they raise, and yet
for this night
there is music and light
and every person has a choice between
what they choose to remember,
what their song will be tomorrow,
when the fields are again empty.
What tales will they tell
and make real, tales of
night,
or light.

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

The picture was taken a couple of weekends ago, at the actual Rupert Old Home Days celebration, in nearby Rupert, VT. You can click on it for a larger version.

Poetry: Choosing a Frame

Choosing A Frame

There is an art to it,
choosing a frame, that
bit of wood, colored or not,
that has the power

to make a picture sing with glory,
or fade into obscurity,
and in choosing that frame, you choose
to see

or not.

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

Tom