those frozen crystals
one after the next
swirl and gust, dance
in sky, as we stare
hoping streets turn white
with each inch on ground
silent time arrives
waiting by the radio
listening to county
after county close schools
for children only think
of sledding and cocoa, and
knocking powder off oak branches
landscape like the untouched moon
today with Zoom the flakes
still descend, but screens trap
the young inside their computers
a flat warm world without end
no more snow days
Please don’t leave me now
that you’ve seen the future.
My ink is real and you can touch
my paper with your hand holding
words, the ones pressed by my metal.
Permanent black rune, my tattooed
sentences offer so much more than
the screen, where mistakes disappear.
Delete, delete, delete-so easy to
forget all the missteps and time taken
to roll sheet after sheet. But each
letter, each tap, was your imprinted
mind. Go to the computer, but this
crumpled beauty, you will never find.
It used to be just books,
parchment and a quill,
perhaps the trunk of an
old oak tree for support
during pauses to reflect
on words, cradling novel’s
spine. This was before the
nothing of everything, lurking
images, news, videos, email,
promising connection to a
world of always distraction,
attempts to evade our depth,
knowing that internet will save
us from ourselves, but the longer
we stare into that flat abyss,
the more we disappear.
Daniel W. Polk 