Bill Carroll
Am I Wrong to Cleave to the Old Times

Am I wrong to cleave to the old times
As if they were better?
Eschewing microwave cooking for my gas oven --
On simmering summer days how must I look the fool
Overheating this languorous clapboard house
For breaded chicken and baked potatoes
A dinner that requires a sweltering hour instead of digital minutes
Then seeking refuge, on the front steps, from the greasy sauna
While others recline in the air conditioned
Indigo shade of their tv.

I wonder -- am I cheating my daughter by refusing to extend
Diplomatic relations to CD players and cellular phones,
Home security systems and fax machines?
To all manner of a silicon-based Genesis,
These cyborgs who refuse to acknowledge their creators
By appearance.
Only flat plastic boxes and featureless wires loping along walls,
No Robbie the Robots clumsily mimicking human speech and motion.

Might she falter and fail -
A Fauve naturalist in a transparent futuristic world
Cursing the stubbornness of frail parents.
We have taught her to can up strawberry jam
Distilled from berries we picked upon our knees
Trying to ignore the supermarket sale on jellies
We socialists playing Monopoly for fun money
In place of Game Boy or internet Nasdaq trades
Walking to preserve petroleum and atmosphere for grandchildren
While others idle long and lackadaisically at the curb.

We whisper on the night porches of vacant vespertine streets,
Where it seems that conversation is extinct.

Not that I am a Luddite, conspiring against technology and innovation,
Or salivating for the good old days of horse drawn carriages
And slavery, Milky Way nights and polio.
I prefer to walk a slower  pace
Rather than to be hurled through uncertain time.
Not embracing the new simply because it is.
Free to seek out the old times
For advice and consent
Like elders in a village now governed by children.