The Sailmaker

He works in a dark room using implements
from another century,
cutting the canvas and cloth
in broad swaths before sewing
the edges, the details that give bare fabric
strength.

The work is slow, hard and tedious.
There is no room for errors,
for a weak sail that unfurls or rips
leaves the sailor floundering and in danger,
perhaps lost in the deep blue waters.

These sails are not for sport.
They are or the horizon seekers,
those who capture the wind and make it their own,
who travel less for pleasure than from a compulsion
to see the world, and change it.

He labors, each stitch, each knot just so.
He never leaves this dark room
with its bales of canvas, wax, and threads.
He will never see the other side of the horizon
that he makes possible,
but he lives in each new land
nonetheless.

About this poem

Written today as I thought about my work as a life coach and business/leadership consultant, and how I quietly work in the background, helping my clients fly and grow into the worlds they want for themselves, capturing the wind and becoming something beyond their horizons.

It is a joyful work.

Tom