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Real Estate Poem

Real Estate Broker/Owner with Fierce Realty Corp RM424134

January 12, 2018 04:23 PM

Okay, so I met John and Jan on a cold call last week as I was prospecting for new business. They have a house for sale in Darby, Pa in (suburb outside of Philadelphia). We chat, I schedule an appointment, John confirms, and we meet on Tuesday.

John is filled with so much historical information about the house, the city, and so much more. I'm a fan of history, but his knowledge-Jan as well, far exceeds any little bit of tidbits that I've self-taught myself along the way. I mean because you can't learn the entire history of America in school, right?

Anyway, John and Jan met with another Realtor that I know and they decided to hire him to sell their home. I didn’t get the listing. He (winning Realtor) awkwardly called me with the news and I wished him genuine good luck. I had asked him if they sang to him the Ground hog song, as they did for me. They did and much more. So, I emailed John and thanked him for the opportunity to meet him and his wife and I wished him good luck as well on the sale of their home. We exchanged a few pleasant emails back and forth, with John eventually sending me poems on architecture. He gave me permission to publish them on my blog, only if I agreed to give credit to his wife Jan and a community group. So below please find poetry from Jan and John Haigis. They are amazing people. Please visit their website.

http://darbyhistory.com/

You can post the poem but I would ask that it be attributed to Jan and John Haigis, DarbyHistory.com. We have been riding this particular hobby horse for some time, since we started the Friends of the Blue Bell in 1985 to work to save the Blue Bell Inn on Cobbs Creek. I started writing more poetry a few years back and here are several others on the same theme:

Old Buildings

Eyesore or treasure? With what shall we measure

The value of buildings we see every day?

Some buildings age gracefully, well pointed masonry

With legions of people to admire and to fix

While some are neglected, abandoned, dejected

A sad wounded call for a quick coup de grace

Roof gone the water pours, glass broken, missing doors

Awaiting the crumble to rubble and sticks

Time, water, and gravity, agents of entropy

Bedevil us all and the things we create

Seeking transcendence and signs of ascendance

Instead we find ruins and piles of old bricks

Sometimes outdated, old stories related

Of who we were once and the things we admired

Like Ozymandias , time levels all of us

And takes us away cross our own River Styx

So like us old buildings are born, grow, and die

Like us old buildings may fade

But those that remain tell their stories again

And remind us of currents that were once in the mix

But unlike us old buildings may continue and live

Unlike us they don’t have to die

Telling stories of craftsmanship, stories of skill

Stories of songs sung in brick.

John Haigis 8/28/14

This one was written at the time of the proposed demo of 715 Darby Terrace when someone on Council said "isn't a marker the same thing (as the building)? http://www.darbyhistory.com/W3R-715DarbyTerrace.html

The Vacant Lots of Darby

The vacant lots of Darby
Not a lot to see
Once they held our story
And our legacy

Some buildings lost to fire
And some were lost to greed
For some their time had simply come

Others had no need

Their presence just an eyesore
Their maintenance a chore
We simply called the backhoe in
And, POOF, they are no more

The memories and promise
Of our shared history
Are remembered now on vacant lots
Not a lot to see

John Haigis, 6/7/14

And then this one

Vocations

A philosopher welder or poet plumber
May be hard to understand
A person who knows how to work with the head
As well as with the hand

There used to be more of a balance
In the guise of the Renaissance Man
or Woman who could weave a life
From a multitude of strands

In this age of specialization though
We are forced to be one or the other
Technology and the humanities
Are seen as feuding brothers

But one may ask why that should be
Underneath our common skies
As too many philosophy majors ask
Do you want that order with fries?