Technology
Oh give me a butter churner, a slate for writing, chickens in the yard, and a horse drawn buggy. I'll forfeit my PDA, computer, laser printer, internet connection and email. A quill pen will do as well as a convoluted program that insists on sending me an error message every time I try and open up a document. And the verbiage. Document—it sounds like a legal brief. When did a poem capitulate and accept a drab appellation—offer herself up on the altar of mediocrity?
I am chained to adapters, to recharging, to messages traveling through cyber space. What happened to Morse Code, to party lines, to the pony express? Now dialog travels before anyone has a chance to change a word. One press of a finger and the words fly—every syllable traveling on an amorphous highway.
Letter writers rise up and extoll the mailbox. I recall the delight of letters written in long-hand and taking their time to meander before arriving. No fast one breath, one inhale, one exhale delivery.
And do I need to know with certainty my whereabouts on a particular day, my every appointment, or telephone call , or memo etched into a hard drive ready for easy access? My trail goes back months and months, years.
If a pencil point breaks, I can shave the point with a kitchen knife. When my computer flashes an error signal and my words flay about and refuse to open I am held captive, a prisoner of a glitch, impaled on technology.
I am chained to adapters, to recharging, to messages traveling through cyber space. What happened to Morse Code, to party lines, to the pony express? Now dialog travels before anyone has a chance to change a word. One press of a finger and the words fly—every syllable traveling on an amorphous highway.
Letter writers rise up and extoll the mailbox. I recall the delight of letters written in long-hand and taking their time to meander before arriving. No fast one breath, one inhale, one exhale delivery.
And do I need to know with certainty my whereabouts on a particular day, my every appointment, or telephone call , or memo etched into a hard drive ready for easy access? My trail goes back months and months, years.
If a pencil point breaks, I can shave the point with a kitchen knife. When my computer flashes an error signal and my words flay about and refuse to open I am held captive, a prisoner of a glitch, impaled on technology.
