A Lifetime of Advancement (Richard HIgley)(8)

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A Lifetime of Advancement


I see a sliding range of change,

The way my grandma did.

This end of life is not the same

As when each was a kid.


I've seen the change accelerate,

And she did just as well.

I've yet to match her hundred years,

But hope I live to tell.


The world of cars and planes was new

When she escaped the womb,

Then forty years beyond the moon,

Before she graced the tomb.


She lived through wars I've heard about,

Then ups and downs of fate.

She cast a gimlet eye upon

Some things I think are great.


She was a lady of her time,

Her church, and neighborhood.

All that happened in her life,

Were shades of bad and good.


Long before the interstates,

She traveled 'cross the land,

With my grandpa in his truck,

Their vistas, often grand.


She didn't think the need so great

For newer, better stuff,

Consumerism's need to buy,

When more is not enough.


Again, like her, I've seen the change

From when I was a kid.

There's very little I do now,

The way that I once did.


The phone I use, no longer tied

To that space on the wall,

Has infiltrated my whole life,

"Til I'm not free at all.


The only thing that I do now,

That I did way back then,

Is write the words I offer you,

With paper and with pen.


I sieved through tomes in dull research

Now just mouse clicks away.

But confidence in what I find,

I feel far less today.


At my desk, the old and new,

In books and circuit boards,

When used together, skillfully,

They strum harmonic chords.


Richard Higley © Oct, 19 2016

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