Quiet as kestrels the messages fly
device to device, thumb to not-quite-eye,
vital as the average breath but swifter.
An improvement on talk, the words uttered
as soon as thought, if not that much sooner,
such progress in a string of characters.
Those languid conversations over a glass
gone the way of cigarettes and a pen
dipped hurriedly in ink at the post office.
The frantic search for coins at the call box
as a stranger queues behind now vanished
with a skilled staccato over copper wire,
a brush on bamboo slats, a folded quire:
five thousand years of habits we can toss.
