Proliferation

Day Nine of GloPoWriMo invites us to write of the big and the small.  Reminded first of oaks and acorns i began my research and I came across this article, which was clearly contrived to play upon my fears.  is-google-making-us-stupid  Why yes Mr Carr, you’ve roused my inner luddite, and surely Google exacting an inconcieved price, Google is making us stupid.
Memory leaned on writing and became weaker for it. Love leaned on thought and became weaker for it. Thought leans on information and atrophies as well. As Love seems more distant than ever, as our devices change the way we live and even think, can Poetry survive?

 

information used to be rare, coveted
squirrelled away in the vaults of libraries
Like diamonds, sparkling, brilliant, tiny

contemplation was huge, they say, back then
monasteries full of acolytes, each in their niche
repercussions were considered, prominent, huge

gutenberg’s carnival contraption dunked authors
into a sea of readers. Authors mulitplied to meet them
every word finally met the page, though some were worth little

now we are caught in a net of our own making
the rare and precious information now as ubiquitous
and as expensive as air, so common, so pervasive, so vast

the skill of the hunter is diminished, that focus
that concentration. All depth is lost, the sea
is a pancake, concentration lost in moments so miniscule

my mind melts and its effluent drips down over everything
covering my heart and drowning my soul in snippets
Prose is dying, will poetry, in it’s absence bloom large?

no i fear. for isn’t poetry about the heart, first and foremost?
it is the key that opens a door to a perception hard to find
by other means, yet the internet has made that door a mote

yet like daffodils under snow or fallen logs, how can we know
what circuitous route the heart will take to blossom anew?
our minds will never be the same once we grow and expand

 

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