Ode to Telephones

A skewed and skewing instrument this,

poor, underdeveloped and weak

as most things technical tend to be,

made for uni-dimensionality,

just voice.

but communication

is about context,

the pieces of sky falling around us,

wind in the hair that is sentence and thought,

leaves made of earth, made of ambience

                                           and a teeming metropole,

gaze,

the texts sans word and metaphor,

gesture,

the play of fingertips, lips and such

and silence of the proximity

has eloquence beyond compare

than silence of distance.

telephones are useful things

for the 'now' if not 'here'

among human beings

separated by mountain and sea,

not for us,

no.

[from the collection 'The Underside of Silence', shortlisted for the Gratiaen Award 2008]

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