please write, don’t call: my love-hate relationship with telephones

“The telephone, which interrupts the most serious conversations and cuts short the most weighty observations, has a romance of its own.” ~ Virginia Woolf

 

Rrrrring!!  Rrrrrrring!!

Oh, it’s for you. 🙂

Oil on canvas by Raymond Logan

THE TELEPHONE
by Edward Field

My happiness depends on an electric appliance
And I do not mind giving it so much credit
With life in this city being what it is
Each person separated from friends
By a tangle of subways and buses
Yes my telephone is my joy
It tells me that I am in the world and wanted
It rings and I am alerted to love or gossip
I go comb my hair which begins to sparkle
Without it I was like a bear in a cave
Drowsing through a shadowy winter
It rings and spring has come
I stretch and amble out into the sunshine
Hungry again as I pick up the receiver
For the human voice and the good news of friends

~ from Counting Myself Lucky (Blacksparrow Press, 1992)

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