Saturday, June 29, 2013

Thought So 2013-W26

Being that we're only human, on occasion we can be very thoughtless.  Which is unintentional, otherwise it's just being mean.  When we later realize we have been thoughtless, best to move swiftly to apologize and right the wrong.  As was the case with this class photograph.  In the original (lower), this cheerful boy had to lean in to the picture after he and his mobility chair were thoughtlessly placed way outside the main grouping.

In this internet age, the ensuing outrage quickly prompted a re-shoot (above) where the boy and his caretaker are fully integrated and he is just as cheerful.  His parents wisely did not show him the first photograph.  Good on them.

Another thing that struck me is how stiff everyone looks in the lower photo.  I guess the second picture was organized in a hurry and taken without warning.  And what a much better picture it makes... everyone looks so comfortable and real.  Maybe there is more than one lesson about school photographs to learn here?

While you think about that, please also enjoy the birthday card I made for my mother, 2013 edition.
It comes complete with a poem.



Tulips for Mum
Tulips 
By A. E. Stallings
 

The tulips make me want to paint,
Something about the way they drop
Their petals on the tabletop
And do not wilt so much as faint,


Something about their burnt-out hearts,
Something about their pallid stems
Wearing decay like diadems,
Parading finishes like starts,


Something about the way they twist
As if to catch the last applause,
And drink the moment through long straws,
And how, tomorrow, they’ll be missed.


The way they’re somehow getting clearer,
The tulips make me want to see
The tulips make the other me
(The backwards one who’s in the mirror,


The one who can’t tell left from right),
Glance now over the wrong shoulder
To watch them get a little older
And give themselves up to the light.

Source: Poetry (June 2009)

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