Tuesday, November 5, 2013

Phones, refugees, and a poem


I’ve been actively looking for a job which has kept me from posting anything.  So far, no success- at least not for a job I really want.  So will I be facing a very long freezing cold winter here?  Looks like it….

ENDLESS PHONING

The first time I witnessed cell phone excess was in the 90’s.  I was in Rome in a restaurant next to a table of 20 somethings.  They barely gave the waiter enough attention to place their orders, still holding onto their phones almost through the entire dinner.  Now, it’s commonplace.  In Rite-Aid the clerk told me she felt invisible since customers barely acknowledged her.  Last weekend I went to see the Balle Fokloric de Bahia.  Now this is a fabulous dance troupe with great musicians and drumming that keeps you moving to the music.  Or not.  A woman in front of me was glued to her cell phone even though the drummers and dancers came up the stairs into the audience.  Well, maybe that got her attention.

   I’m guilty of the cell phone connectedness.  It gives me something to do with my nervous fingers.  It helps me block out all the crazies on my daily public transportation.  I hope I know the limits of my escapism before I miss something wonderful or important.

 

The deaths of two refugee students last week led me to this…. and my own parents’ escape from the war.

 

                    HERITAGE

Buy gold

Buy it now.

When you flee

the home exploding,

the burnt landscape,

trade it for a loaf of bread.

 

Remember poems,

as many that

fill the confined

calendar days  

of prison.

 

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