PAD Day 26: The Old Ways

Today's dual prompts from Poetic Asides and NaPoWriMo: (1) write a "regret" poem, and (2) write a poem "exploring a particular object or place from the point of view of some far-off, future scientist".

Lost Art

I've been working for years trying to interpret

an obscure style of calligraphy from ancient times,

created with writing implements and ink.

It's quite lovely, when done well.  Its practitioners,

apparently followers of a man named Palmer,

found a way to communicate with slanted swirls and loops,

connecting them into units that must have been words.

We have found evidence in the papers of schoolchildren,

who were taught to practice it early in life,

and we have found documents that may have been a way

of communicating love, or friendly greetings.

These people must have regretted losing the ability

to create such flowing, graceful writing.

I understand that feeling, because I am one of the last

of my kind to employ the form of written language

I am using now, called the "alphabet".

No one else seems to know how to read this anymore.

They all prefer using symbols like faces with emotions

and simple pictographs, a return to hieroglyphics,

or dare I say, cave drawings.

As one of the last of the historians and linguists,

I am trying to keep the old ways alive,

but the flame is starting to flicker out.

This is inspired by the reports I hear, in both the news and personal accounts (from teachers and even my youngest son) that kids are growing up these days with the inability to read and write in cursive. Handwriting itself seems to be a dying art, and even literacy seems to be in danger with all the new, faster and more efficient ways to communicate electronically. Oh well, call me an old fogey - I still know how to use an analog clock, a rotary phone, and a VCR.