27 January 2004 9:27 pm
Software
In the end what is there?
Is its expression nothing more
than billions of birds in flight illuminating the phosphor plane as they escape forever?
Is its thought nothing more
than a sustained stream twisting and turning through the silicon canals?
Is its legacy nothing more
than a landscape of peaks and valleys preserved in plastic; ever awaiting the light of the laser sun?
I sit watching the birds fly through the plane,
imagining the streams flowing,
listening to the landscape spin beneath the sun,
and yet there is nothing to touch, to feel, to hold...
So I go outside and splash barefoot in a babbling brook,
feeling the cold crisp water and the perfect pebbles between my toes.
San Francisco, California
1998
A number of my poems are influenced by science and technology. This one reflects on the dichotomy of my technology-focused aspirations and nature-focused inclinations and on my difficulty in finding a balance. I wrote this poem on a napkin in the Thirsty Bear brew pub, whose beers and tapas I would highly recommend, during MacWorld San Francisco.
