Virtual

Virtual

I went to Catholic school
Where virtues reigned!

Posture mattered.
Penmanship won medals.

Kneeling straight
Got approving nods.

Staying in line
Was the sole way to advance.

Now here I am in
Virtual reality.

With a universal view:
From Middle East to China.

USA – a passing view
From satellite.

Sandwiched in
Between script and ancient sages.

Bowing for my bread
Tiny steps to understanding

The power in the clouds
The virtual magnificence of virtue’s child!
9/11/12
All rights Jeanne Poland

No Man Is An Island

For some,
financial stability
and spiritual autonomy
enable a solitary life,
a living single,
a “light on the feet”
free to climb stamina.

Living alone
provides
restoration, privacy,
solitude and space
but also hunger for contact,
and anxiety about crisis survival.

It cultivates the
cult of individual rules,
a sparsity of shared responsibility and
civic leadership.

Beware!
Digital communications are
ranty, dishonest and weird.
Real world interactions
force us
to deal with a diversity
not found virtually.

The virtual community
lives in
“the half light”.

Texting
doesn’t replace phone;
e-mail distracts from the face-to-face.

We need
to summon ourselves
by ourselves.

Trained by the Net,
solitude eludes us.
Without training,
we cannot manage the
complex forms of engagement,
and easily withdraw.

Without fierce autonomy,
we cannot heal our wounds.
Confessing on line
doesn’t work.
Healing needs a touch,
an organic space,
time to grow,
root,
blossom.

More than a whoosh
a beep
a ping!

A seed in the dark earth,
rain and sun,
dewdrops on seedlings,
new growth:
EARTHLINGS!!!!!!

All rights
Poland