Obsolescence

Precious is the crackslam of metal buttons in the dryer.
Families race room to room when the telephone sings.
Bookshelves turn to wallpaper and we cherish the spines
in their tidy jackets standing at attention.
Through oneway preprogrammed interactions, we've fallen
in collusion with things and marvel at their loyalty,
their wroughtiron faith in us. In the archdiocese of spoons
there are no sinners. Saints are a quaint but outdated technology.
The wireless kingdom has come to install the earthly throne
of God; morning birdsong, the serpent’s sigh, are hereby
preempted by the militant hmmm and murrr of herds
of zip drives and other everlasting denizens of the new
paradise. Onward current flowing. Eden never sleeps.
We are the gardeners who might have been the garden.

Copyright © 2004 Leigh Anne Couch All rights reserved
from Beloit Poetry Journal
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission