In the digital age, we have more ways to communicate than we ever have before. Cell phones, email, Skype, social media. We have shared some great stories online and in class about how technology has helped us communicate. But sometimes there is still a communication breakdown. Online comments and texts are misinterpreted, pictures with ex-significant others get posted and tagged after the person has already moved on to someone new, there are trolling wars. No matter how much technology advances, communication is still hard work.
This poem I’m working on isn’t about digital communication, but it is about the difficulty of communicating what we feel. When I reread it today it made me think of digital culture. With all the new technology, what is the best medium to express what we feel? Will those mediums be adequate?
Recipe for Love
Ellis Beth Clark Dyck
I wanted to woo you with food,
speak to your palate in passionate flavor.
I decided on a cake,
your mother’s recipe,
homemade butter cream frosting,
shaped like a heart. And then I thought,
what if it burned, what if you weren’t hungry,
what if you didn’t understand
this cake was my love for you?
What if my heart
spoke to yours in baking
and your tongue, teeth, esophagus
tasted, chewed, swallowed
without relaying the message?
What if your soft palate and lips
didn’t give a soft answer?
Delicious! I love you!
What if the masticated remnants of my love
passed through undigested,
never nourishing your blood and bones
with the surety that I love you wholly and completely?
What recipe, even from your mother’s cookbook,
Could measure out passion, affection, desire, and loyalty
In proportional quantities so that the sum
Of these ingredients was undying love?
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