Poem: "Nothing in Our Material World"
Aug. 17th, 2013 02:55 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ysabetwordsmithThis is the freebie for the August ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
crowdfunding Creative Jam. It was inspired by a prompt from perfectworry.
"Nothing in Our Material World"
Technology rolls forward
as inexorably as a boulder
rolling down a mountain slope.
Forms of writing come and go,
formats evolve over time --
the clay slab of cuneiform
gives way to the scroll of calligraphy.
History turns the page,
and printed books emerge
like amphibians testing their fins
on the damp shore of origins, and oh --
there is nothing in our material world
more beautiful than a book.
Light flickers, teasing darkness,
and words scroll across the screen,
rich with relics of earlier iterations
as the reader learns to page down
and tab and bookmark quotes --
the ebook has arrived.
It is not the same as the original,
just as books were not the same
as scrolls or slabs of clay,
but it goes even farther;
the casing is cool smooth plastic
that offers little stimulation
of scent or feeling.
Something in us hungers still
for the dry dust and old spice
smell of books on the shelf,
longs to feel the flutter of pages
turning under eager fingertips.
Let there always be books,
however far technology advances,
for if we abandon this,
our thoughts will become no more
than words written in wind and light
and we will be left with
nothing in our material world.
* * *
Notes:
"Please, no matter how we advance technologically, please don't abandon the book. There is nothing in our material world more beautiful than the book." -- Patti Smith
crowdfunding Creative Jam. It was inspired by a prompt from perfectworry."Nothing in Our Material World"
Technology rolls forward
as inexorably as a boulder
rolling down a mountain slope.
Forms of writing come and go,
formats evolve over time --
the clay slab of cuneiform
gives way to the scroll of calligraphy.
History turns the page,
and printed books emerge
like amphibians testing their fins
on the damp shore of origins, and oh --
there is nothing in our material world
more beautiful than a book.
Light flickers, teasing darkness,
and words scroll across the screen,
rich with relics of earlier iterations
as the reader learns to page down
and tab and bookmark quotes --
the ebook has arrived.
It is not the same as the original,
just as books were not the same
as scrolls or slabs of clay,
but it goes even farther;
the casing is cool smooth plastic
that offers little stimulation
of scent or feeling.
Something in us hungers still
for the dry dust and old spice
smell of books on the shelf,
longs to feel the flutter of pages
turning under eager fingertips.
Let there always be books,
however far technology advances,
for if we abandon this,
our thoughts will become no more
than words written in wind and light
and we will be left with
nothing in our material world.
* * *
Notes:
"Please, no matter how we advance technologically, please don't abandon the book. There is nothing in our material world more beautiful than the book." -- Patti Smith
(no subject)
Date: 2013-08-17 09:19 pm (UTC)Thank you!
Date: 2013-08-17 09:23 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2013-08-18 01:44 am (UTC)Thank you!
Date: 2013-08-18 01:46 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2013-08-19 01:13 am (UTC)Yes...
Date: 2013-08-19 06:53 am (UTC)