From there to here in a breath
Form horse and cart
To space shuttle.
From dirt road
To motorway.
From stretched paper,
Line and prop
To turbojet.
From gaslight
To electrical appliance.
From unshod feet
To fashion shoes to throw.
From the soils of the earth
To the dust of the moon.
From an early bed
To late night TV.
From starving children here
To starving children there.
From one war
To a host more.
From a switchboard
And black Bakelite phone
To text and go.
From a letter on a horse
To an email.
From a reference book
To Wikipedia.
From a village
To the world.
It’s a long way to travel
In a single life.
Opher 18.4.2014
From there to here in a breath
I was recalling the tales told to me by my grandmother. She saw the first cars and the space shuttle. She talked of the first planes made of paper, wood, wires and a propeller that crawled across the skies.
My mother talked of children playing in the streets without shoes, having their feet bound in rags for winter; of people being sewn into their clothes for winter.
I remember the milk and coal being delivered by horse and cart, the man coming round to light the street gaslights.
In the sixties the first computers the size of rooms running on cut-out cardboard.
Will there ever be a time when things have changed so much?
For centuries people went on doing things in the same old way. The pace of life was slow and change unheard of. Then the industrial revolution, invention and capitalism; the speed increased. It was all about progress – which basically meant someone making money. The rate of change has been stupendous. You blink and the world has changed.
Is it good?