Dawn of the Electronic Age Poet

Staring at another document
etched into glowing phosphor
on my computer screen,
patterns of light shift
page to page.				Then gazing with soft eyes
					across the depths of my home canyon,
					the tops of the tallest redwoods
					disappear in the mist.

For every shining character 		
passing before my eyes			
blending into words,
paragraphs and articles,		There is a single leaf
					on the madrone 
					poking up through my 
					faded redwood deck,
					hidden in its canopy of
					shining green.

For every keystroke I 
hammer onto my keyboard
causing a letter of harsh light
to appear before my eyes,		I place one soft footstep 
					onto the forest floor,
					fading as I walk on
					to the next.

For each poem I read
on the worldwide network
electronically linking poets
across distances
unknown to me,				I have to read one poem aloud
					on the road to La Honda
					down the canyon back of the skyline
					ridge separating Silicon Valley
					from the creeping Pacific fog.
					Halfway to the coast,
					behind distant greys 
					of endless redwood ridges,
					I stop, and 
					leaning across a perfect white fence,
					I read this poem aloud
					to a white horse
					in front of the red barn
					that everyone in the Bay Area
					has photographed.

Every poem I
post to this network,
electronically published
to countless poets [and readers?]
around the shrunken wide
world,					I must write longhand
					in pencil
					or Chinese brush pen
					on fine rice paper
					over and over
					until it is complete.

Whenever a new silicon chip		
is designed to run faster		
than a 486 or a SPARC,			A youth discovers poetry or painting
					behind closed doors in his room
					in the twilit dark.


A fiber optic cable
connects an ethernet wire
to another site's local network 		
linking in new clusters
of electronic machines,			And a student reads 
					a notice on a campus kiosk
					and enrolls in a class in
					Chinese painting 
					with a master artist
					from Beijing.


When I discovered computers
as a tool to explore
mathematical reaches of the
electronic mind,
to free myself from the drudgery 
of algebra class,			Someone, also in junior high school,
					somewhere unknown to me,
					learned to play the cello
					to feel the deep vibration
					and the dark throb of the musical 
					earth.

For every poet discovering the thrill
of this network of minds disembodied into
keystrokes sending electron pulses
forming ascii characters
etched in thousands of bits of phosphor
or laser-driven particles of black toner
onto two-dimensinal trees,		A boy, out of breath running
					hard across the green field
					of the neighborhood soccer league
					discovers the connection:
					thigh to calf, ankle to Nike,
					sending the round ball
					across the field,
					teammate's ankle to Nike,
					relayed into the waiting goal,
					releasing throb of jubilation
					echoed in speeding pulse and
					roar of sparse crowd
					ringing the cold Saturday
					morning field.

My words linked to other minds
across this worldwide network of 
characters built from patterns 
patterns of more or less 
electronic flux stored on 
thin rotating magnetic disks.
Transmitted across
long wires to other disks,
copied to other nodes
in other states.
Read by other poets,
triggering thoughts, ideas
sparking between the collective synapses 
of this network of poets
across the country 
around the entire
world.				  	I see the veins of a leaf
					networking in tiny detail
					across every square fraction
					of an inch, every round
					chloroplast shining its bit of
					green to the world. Converting
					pulses of red light to sugars
					transported through many veins
					to neighbors near and far
					linked throughout this 
					entire tall
					tree.

Cybernetic researcher
studies the effects
of this connectivity 
and the ensuing acceleration of
the expansion and evolution of 
the collective consciousness
presiding over the shrinking of
the world's borders and 
its sphere  of linked
nondistances.				Young drummer returns
                                        from travels culminating
					decades of research into the
					rhythms formed by countless
					hands creating the soul of
					many cultures,
					Drumming, brings
					The music of the world from
					The Edge of Magic to the
					beating hearts and souls of
					the modern people.


For in Technology			And in Rhythm,
there is Spirit,			Soul.