This is a poem I wrote earlier this week, prompted by something like a Spirit Week at work--Purple Week, created to help us focus on the Purple Promise, which is a FedEx customer service-based initiative, by which we are encouraged to make every experience outstanding. The inspiration for midweek was to create a poem celebrating this commitment to be submitted to our district management, from which one would be chosen as a proclamation, at least to the rest of the district. The following was chosen to that end, and I had received good accolades for it from the Midwest District Manager and from a number within our Carol Stream terminal.
I like the commitment, this Purple Promise; and I'm enjoying this opportunity working for FedEx more and more...there is something about this company that drives me! But the poem, as you can see, relegates anything specifically corporate to the final lines, focusing much more on the spirit of the initiative and what it means to me on a wider scale. Enuf, tho, let's get to it!
The Choice
We rise to each day with a choice to make
Whether to give or whether to take
To live good or be bad, to think right or act wrong
To shout out in anger or sing a new song
Whatever we choose makes a frame for that day
Guiding our thoughts and the things that we say
To smile or to frown, to build up or cut down
We impact each other, our choices resound
The choice to excel in all that we do
To turn wrong into right, and old into new
To make each experience the best it can be
To strive for that mark for both you and me
This choice is often the one most clear to us
But also oft the one most arduous
We tend to choose the easier, faster route
Despite how it impacts all others throughout
Yes, choosing excellence requires commitment
Prompting us to see how others may be
Affected by all the choices we make
But that choice, when taken, will drive our achievement
Giving more pride as we all take that ride
Seeing us in this for everyone's sake
At FedEx we call this the Purple Promise
May we all make this choice to take it upon us!
--Josh Lamken
Good job Josh.
ReplyDeleteBut before anyone comments on the purpleness of this poem, a caution to you English majors: I felt pretty pleased with Dan's "purple patch" compliment a few years ago, and I was pretty sure he meant it as a compliment. Dan applied that term again to our recent series of poems and stories in the symposia, and if he means that we are having an especially verdant and colorful stretch, with Josh's poem and jukebox challenge, Mom's lamb poem and her two birth stories, Dan's lenten reflections -- I heartily agree.
But then I just looked up the phrase "purple patch" and learned it has another more derisive meaning. Dang this language! And curses for feeling compelled to analyze it! It seems a purple passage in literature is one that is excessively flourished and over the top.
Josh, your poem is not purple in that way (other than maybe the "oft the one" line), and I am glad you are getting some kudos for it from within your company. In fact, maybe it is better to get compliments from non-English majors on these things!
Dan, I do believe you meant well.