Poem: Slender Threads

Slender Threads

We are all connected by such slender threads

Electronic community, here today, gone tomorrow

We reach out through our keyboard and our wits

If we receive no answer, we wonder what’s going on?

We make new friends from a thousand miles away,

but if something goes wrong, we’re out of touch

We’ve all come to depend on our computer to stay connected, to stay up-to-date

with others’ lives; with others we’ll probably never meet

It seems so strange, this long-distance friendship

Impersonal communication; invisible connecting

No face-to-face; no private way to air secret thoughts,

no way to actually help someone when problems arise

There is a huge gulf between wanting to help, and being able to

That's the unvarnished truth of our situation