Write

reeds growing in blistering heat along a fading brown river

cut at an angle and pressed into soft clay, make wedge shaped impressions;

rows and columns record bushels and measures of the day’s harvest.

thin brushes dipped in soot-based ink spread carefully on papyrus

make pictograph characters filling forty foot scrolls of real paper,

noting the assets and liabilities of landowners.

bamboo fountain pens spell out imperial decrees on paper and parchment,

while letters of love and devotion to be delivered in secret travel with

geometry, history, rhetoric, and the inspired words of God.

quill pens forming slanting letters and emerging cursive

mark out dramatic plays and comedies, and maps of new lands,

while kings and lords express words of encouragement or threat.

pencil lead, metal points, steel nibs with iridium tips

draw specifications for locomotives, incite populations to revolt

and arrange solemn words meant to be intoned over bloodied battlefields.

ball points, plastic, cheap and accessible tools

made by the million to record a phone message while you were out

and scrawl lists of vegetables, canned goods and toiletries to be picked up.

electronic pads, poked at by thumbs skewed by steering wheels,

flash coded abbreviations of the elegant English language

sharing updated social calendars of the illiterati.