In The Age of Alexa:
Florescent Sun, Clock For A Heart
They’ll never know,
These children of the future,
Our same silence again,
The light on their leaf passes away,
Small flowers between my fingers stay,
While the luminescent moon becomes
A dial on our wrists,
Closing the hand with automation,
The birds at dawn are orchestrated now,
And fish swim according to size,
Do you not see the snow moving upward,
When it flies too close to earth,
They’re on top of it all, the children of the future,
They grew up beyond a time when there were places of quiet,
Where the bees had hives of their own design,
Let’s go for a walk, just us,
Down the hill toward the park,
We’ll watch the brook, hidden, moving on its own,
Then we’ll come home, the two of us, before dark,
We’ll know time by looking at the sky, one last time.
Before blue and grey calibrate to dusk.
Copyright © Grace Cavalieri 2018
Grace Cavalieri is celebrating 41 years on public radio, with “The Poet and the Poem” now from the Library of Congress. She holds Associated Writing Program’s “George Garret Award” for service to literature. She is the author of 20 books and chapbooks and 26 produced plays, short-form and full-length. She is the poetry columnist/reviewer for The Washington Independent Review of Books. Her new book is a compendium of poetry, plays and interviews, Other Voices, Other Lives (2017.)
30 for 30 is sponsored by Potomac Review
Grace, this is so lovely and apt, given the technology that surrounds us. Thank you!
Such a beautiful, meaningful poem.
Fantastic poem, great last line!
Your poem is the first thing I read this morning, and it filled me with peace, with a deep gratefulness for what we have, what we are about to lose. Thank you.
Grace, this is beautiful, so soft and beautiful.
Beautiful elegy. Maybe these children of the future will know time by looking at the sky, too. Let’s hope. Lovely poem.
Yes, when there were moments of quiet. Thank you, Grace. This is beautiful.
“They grew up beyond a time when there were places of quiet, Where the bees had hives of their own design” …so much innocence and nature lost in our quest for what gain? Thanks for sharing.