Lost North

author’s note:

There’s a certain expression that I don’t like: “touchy feely”.  I don’t like the snide, derogatory way in which we use this expression--as if touching and feeling have no real value.


LOST NORTH

What if we lost
our technology?--

as we did so long ago
we refuse to believe
we can lose again...

What if
we lost our technology--?--
our ability to wound the whole,
along with our ability to patch the fracture?
Our ability to create such magic,
complexity, and noise?

We would still
have our arms,
our legs, our mind,
our heart.

What if we lost
our technology when suddenly
our hands said “no”?--
when our feet walked us away
from what we had
so carelessly created.  Lost technology
when our nerve endings
ganged their ganglia together
to protest the forfeiture of touch.

Maybe then we would all
go North--to that place
we have either forgotten
or ignored--I believe
we are hard wired
to go North--there,
to find our answers:
the dark, mysterious North.

That’s what I want
to believe.  That’s what
I hope I know.

But if we do lose
our technology
wherever we would be
would be a place
we would eventually
leave again--I know
from experience:

I myself, have
--on occasion--
forgotten how to walk.

But when I could
walk again, I saw
that back there
I sure did struggle
to crawl.

And when I forgot
how to walk
I still had my arms,
my legs, my mind,
my heart.

© 2008, Michael R. Patton
dream steps
an earful