Ctrl+X

I'm surprised at how often people copy
and paste

and then go back to delete what they copied

rather than just

cutting it
(thus copying and deleting it at the same time)

and then pasting it

to save time.

Is there some technology-trust issue here,
knowing that if the robots will eventually rebel
(as is so aptly depicted in so many tales),
surely they must be out to get our
resumes, recipes, essays, and emails
in a humble prelude to world domination?

Or perhaps this practice is proof that
the infant's confusion about object permanence
persists even in adolescents
(digital natives though they be)
and on to bewildered adults
squinting askance at keys and screen?

Or is it the afterlife we're concerned about?
Unsure about our continuation
in a different part of this cosmically documented story
after our ultimate deletion,
we sloppily copy and paste ourselves on as many
photo albums, headstones, lives,
label-makered miscellany,
(and even libraries or LLCs)
as possible before being
cut
unprepared,
just to make sure we're not accidentally lost forever
if somehow
the code or the keys fail
and we're left half-beamed-up,
a pleiotaxy of pixels
floating forever betwixt our home planet
and some eternal Enterprise,
Scotty lamenting
"I cannae change the laws of physics!"
as he hits, over and over,
Ctrl+Z.

The Fireflies

The fireflies ascend
and flash together,
by some magical
yet natural
process.

Setting the undersides of trees
and tips of grass
and random spheres of space
aglow
with a soft green-yellow fire.

We catch them
not with nets
but with gently placed palms
beneath wherever they are hovering,
gently raising our hands
till they land and say,
"Oh, okay. I'll take a rest, then."

And we feel the pulse,
the urge to shine in time
with a rhythm we cannot fathom
and a synchronicity we can't explain,
as shocks of lighting pass through us -

conductors, resistors, transformers
on an endless circuit -
axons, synapses dendrites
in an infinite mind -
atria, ventricles, aorta
within a many-chambered heart,

keeping our feet grounded
while lost in thought,
defibrillated into feeling.