Tag: progress

Toddlers’ Steps

All part of the journey,

tiny steps,

toddled steps,

reaching, wond’ring, touching, tumbling,

tentative steps, tiny steps,

falling down and bumping

and rising once again,

toddlers’ steps, the learning ones,

very little steps.

 

Frustrated tears and tantrums,

cautious steps,

toddled steps,

discovery in action,

wondrous steps, toaty steps,

letting go and trusting with some traction found and then

little steps, keep travelling,

very little steps.

 

Forwards, backwards, sideways, standing,

smiling, crying, up aspiring,

bumpy steps, toddlers’ steps,

fingers flailing, clutching, prising,

stumbling, reaching, failing, rising

step by step, step by step,

little butts keep tumbling, bouncing on and up,

teeny, tiny, teaching little steps.

 

perseverance, motion upright, two-step struggle, backwards,

forwards, ever onwards, sometimes upwards,

trying, failing, hurting, crying, immobilised, afraid,

still trying, trusting, seeing, wailing, weeping,

tempers, tantrums, dismayed and greeting,

pulling socks up, tying laces, ready, steady,

balance handy,

tiny little steps.

 

Eyes on loving arms outreaching,

smiling steps, trusting steps,

supporting, cheering, gaze unwaver’d

encouraged steps, building steps,

loving trust and confidence from others on the way,

little steps, the needed ones,

all important steps.

 

Striding out with self-assurance,

tiny steps,

toddled steps,

reaching for all promise,

swaying steps, bipedalled steps,

steps along the journey never really change their gait,

growth and progress toddle on,

determined toddlers’ steps.

 

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Daubs Deployed

Whispers echo still, enlighten’d darkness,

Linger, longing, found in cyberspace,

Heard beyond all planetary, winsome,

I hear them then I picture words and face.

Whispers rise up, somehow are converted,

Awesomely configured, rendered, changed,

I can’t conceive of how a brain invented

Ways to alter speech, so rearranged.

I guess it started with some daubs on cave walls,

Grunts to graphics, pics for history,

Some cuneiform and hieroglyphs translating

Thoughts to page awaiting you and me,

Some ink pens then, calligraphy, that beauty,

Painstaking effort, patient and adorned,

Greek, Semitic, Arabic and Chinese

Marks upon some parchment to inform.

I’m thinking then of smoke and drums and phone calls

And telegraphs that sped the process on,

Who knew that one day someone could encrypt so

And fire words to ether coded, formed.

Thinking typewriters, TV and now Skyping,

Measures that foreclose the distance, space,

So techy I can barely understand it

But glad still that the progress had its place.

I’m putting down my pen now, words on paper,

Typing from the symbols, thoughts to all,

Sending code still daubed, deployed as little pictures,

Some abstracted, etched forever on my cavern’s wall.

Planned Obsolescence

It started with a ball point,

A little plastic pen.

Forget replacement cartridge.

Buy new, begin again.

 

Before too long, repairing

Became something of a myth.

Discard the old, spend afresh.

Commerce’s great self gift.

 

Advancements in technology

Had ideas about forever

But panic is a fearsome foe.

Reduce their spending? Never!

 

‘We’ll have to get a grip on this

Before the market fails.

Put a halt on progress, chaps, or

We’ll be going off the rails.’

 

‘How about some plotting then?

Some bugs to keep them keen?

Repairs cost more than buying new?

Nudge, wink. Know what I mean?’

 

‘You’re joking, man, they’re not that daft.

Unless of course we’re wary.

This could save our arses, guys.

Penury is scary.’

 

‘How about we use components

That fail in maybe five years?

That would keep them buying.’

‘Sure, we’ve found the answer. Cheers!’

 

‘Now profit margin’s down a bit.

Some work is needing done

On putting up the ante, folks.

This could be such fun!’

 

‘Keep in reserve the best of stuff

And filter through the trash,

Give them a taste of what’s to come.

Same stuff, we’ll just rehash.’

 

‘We’re owed some homage for our work,

Humility, some obeisance.

We’ll get our kicks, lads, never fear

By planning obsolescence.’

 

It never ends. Manipulation.

Market forces, it seems,

Determine days from when a pen was filled

For inscribing future dreams.

 

 

Progress

Progress moves forward, time cannot pause,

Past is unchanging, we know this because

Nothing, here present, allows us to alter

Yesterday’s stories, yet we stutter and falter,

 

To grasp our todays and heal where we may

Holding to history, as if we could say,

‘That never happened. That book is a lie.’

If we live in the past, we suffer and die

 

To future’s new chances, a life with less pain,

But still we persist in living again

In past recollections where sorrow is spent,

Move on with new hope, life is but lent

 

For such a short while, each day just a gift,

In peril we waste them, let soul and heart lift.

A new understanding, resume with your living

Reconciling with self, be much more forgiving.

 

As, many the times, we look and we see,

The burden of guilt is on you and on me.

Progress rewards us with many advances

But we must be watchful. Seize all our chances

 

To live our new days each present, here now,

For, come our tomorrows, they may not allow

The same opportunities to develop and grow

In wisdom of life. No secret. We know

 

That life and its loving, all it may offer

Is rarely mistaken, it seeks to proffer

Many a lesson, if we can but learn, that

Progress, development, come in their turn

 

To challenge our theories, our thoughts and our ways,

Embrace what is past but go on with our days.

Change is a happenstance, a gurgling stream,

Never stagnating, let not your dreams

 

Be caught in the yesterdays, where nothing can vary.

Progress is wonderful, though sometimes quite scary!

Smile at the present, resist the long face,

Being happy in now, knows no disgrace

 

If thought and a heart, cleared of distress,

Love and forgive. We can do no less

If some of the morals we needed to know,

Experience helped us and taught us to grow.

 

Goodbye to the past, although it has formed us,

Hello to today, yesterday informed us

In mercy and kindness where all who may seek,

Receive and give freely, all days of each week.