Time And Words

Those of us who were teenagers in the analogue world,
well before digital communications sped up all messaging, 
can remember the joy and despair of trying to be pen pals
with somebody whose address we had discovered
and we were both displaced and hungry in the need
to connect with another well away from where we were.

Then, and since, other people's handwriting might be
the ongoing small miracle that we became attached to,  
letter to letter, unaware of what our handwriting meant
to another unless they wrote as much to tell us.

Now we have standard print Trebuchet, Times,
Georgia, Courier, Arial, Helvetica and Verdana,
and screens that invent the time economy, and limit
our attention spans, and therefore at what length
we are at ease we can write hoping to be read.

There the smaller the screen and the more information
the device the machine stores then the sooner
that more of us will wear glasses more of the time,
in a print and image based information-rich society. 

And those who prefer to use emojis
do well to say as much with them as they do
whilst leaving print based human life forms mystified.