Forgetting

Beneath my fingers and thumbs

the flat keys wait, lifeless and still.

Heaney rode backwards through time, riding

on the memories of father and grand-father,

for the past was his concern, not the future.

But I will look forwards to the times of my children

and my children’s children, to how the world will change

and how the words and the writing will change

as technology advances.

Will my children write essays snug in their beds,

with eye strain caused by hours gazing at their iPads,

breeding a need for prescription eye-glasses?

Will they remember paper and pen

or will those be relics of the ancient world of their father?

You may laugh at the thought, but we have iPhones and Kobo ereaders

and even Bluetooth control for our cars.

Will my grandchildren think their words and watch them

spread across the holographic screen, bringing new meaning

to stream of consciousness writing?  Will they even know

what foolscap is?  Or lead pencils?  Or pink erasers?

Or will writing have passed out of style with a new medium

rising to illustrate the need for story and word

to express the interior thoughts and emotions

of this race of humans, flawed but fixed by tech.

How will my children write?  Will my grand-children write?
By the time my great-grand-children are born will they be a part

of a world that has forgotten the pen and the pencil

that allowed us to express ourselves with this written, divine language?

Beneath my fingers and thumbs

the flat keys wait.

What will I choose to remember with them?