Someone To Tell

Our wants shift

With the change,

That time brings.

One day

In the Bermuda Triangle

Of your past

While rummaging in the attic

You find a typewriter

That had once been a friend.

Nearby, a charger for the cordless phone system

You’d hooked up all over the house.

Stacks and stacks

Of clothes in various sizes

That no longer fit;

Each garment proof of a different you:

Sometimes thinner, sometimes wider,

Poignant evidence that 

Our empires shift horizontally,

And with age —

Vertically as well.

There’s a box in the corner

With actual photos taken

During a journey

From San Francisco to Seattle.

Long ago, and yet so immediate.

A thai restaurant in Berkley

That has yet to be beat.

Pad Thai of the gods.

A muffin the size of a softball in Eureka.

The winding road on the coast

Where a classic view happened

So often that it became tedious.

Driving the rental car,

A Cadillac,

Through a tree.

Parking in Portland

And learning that one can find

A coffee house every hundred yards

Or so it seemed.

Half a decade before the internet,

Before a staggering array of new wants arrived.

Such as

the house-shattering explosion

Of dial up ….

Shwassh, shwasssh, shwasssh,

screech, screech,

BONG, BONG, BONG …

Then the wait.

Something’s wrong.

No, it’s just taking forever.

Those first years traveling

And suddenly fast speed is an amenity, like HBO.
Not long before a friend suggests a wireless router.
And the world evolved. Again.

Flip phones.

Then the game changer of all game changers:

Smart phones.
Now we are truly stupid

Without our device.

Not long ago, when someone

Forgot their wallet, major panic.
Now when the phone is left behind

People feel nude in a public place.

Lately, there’s serious chatter

About cars that drive themselves.

Get your kicks on Route 66?

I suppose that that will be a convenience,

To sit back and leave the driving

To your new best robot friend.

It is SO 20^th century.
To sit behind the wheel

Of a vehicle with a stick shift

And a great sound system:

Then, get your motor running;

Head out on the highway;

Looking for adventure.

A robot can’t replace that urge.

Not for me.

Once upon a time

The romantic dipped a quill

And scratched his feelings on parchment

To send to his or her paramour.

There’s a 19^th century word.

Paramour.

But it’s also one “thing” that will never disappear.

We can high tech ourselves to boredom,

Take selfies,

Hook up with strangers,

Do a zillion things quicker and faster;

But we will never outrun or outfeel

Actual human nature.

We will always need to belong,

To share,

To know that someone else

Heard us, 

Saw us, 

Laughed with us.

It’s why we crave Facebook and Twitter:
To be seen,

Acknowledged,

Appreciated,

Accepted.

That’s a given.

None of us can thrive alone.

Isolation is the purest hell.

We will always need

Someone to tell.