Flawed Gravestones

The Shakers wasted nothing.
Careful. Slow. Steady.
They treated work as worship,
a striving for perfection.
They recycled. They repurposed.
Even flawed gravestones found new life
as ironing boards. And while the Shakers
no longer exist, their work remains.
Their lessons remain, even if
we learn them a bit late, nothing is wasted.
Not love. Not passion. Not failure
or old successes. Not the broken things
or the things you have repaired.
Flaws, failures and all, there is meaning
in the life we choose, and in how we live
in the life we don’t

About this poem

I am not exactly obsessed with the Shakers, but oh how I admire them.

I am not exactly obsessed with finding lessons in everything that happens in my life, but it is a tent pole of how I live.

Poetry is never about one thing. Except love poems.

The photograph was taken at the Hancock Shaker Villiage in Mass.

Tom