A drawing in sand
no more permanent
or future-assured,
these e-words in e-books
digital transients.
How so? Why ephemeral?
The data lost, gone.
The fact of today
all is disposable,
garbage tomorrow.
E_words chasing e-words,
unfixed, temporary,
not ink, not print,
virtual words in virtual books,
defenceless, unsafe.
E-books, e-pages,
shooting stars,
extinguished and
extinct in future,
no mark left behind.
Book? Paper and card,
a union – a unity,
passing from A to B,
buried in time, tomorrows,
rediscovered in future.
E-books, word-butterflies,
dreams, passing – fading.
Where, the archive?
An Alexandria again?
Guardian library lost.
The dream today,
delusion fondly held,
but tomorrow holds?
Redundancy, loss,
new illusion of permanence.
Steve K Smy, June 2013
(Copyright © Steve K Smy, 2013)
