Contemporary Weigh Stations

At each new weigh station
Transporters pause beneath electric lights,
Information measured for journeys ahead.
So do we.

Notifications gather like leaves in a storm drain,
While algorithms redraw tomorrow overnight.
We step aside to inspect our load:
Memories stored in clouds,
Friendships carried by screens,
And data cascading through our lives
Like a river that no longer remembers its banks.

Further ahead, another weigh station waits,
Part refuge, part mirror.
There we compare ourselves
To rivers finding altered channels,
To forests adapting beneath changing seasons.
Work travels without offices,
Communities gather without town squares,
And knowledge arrives in torrents
That can nourish or drown.

Still, hope endures.
Human curiosity remains a sheltered flame
Within technology's avalanche of demands.
Perhaps taking cover long enough to reflect
Is wiser than believing the next weigh station
Will withstand all that rushes toward it.

And here we stand
At the weigh station called Now,
Where change grows heavier by the hour,
And the desire to become something new
Is greater than the rest time allows.

Yet…

As the societal scales settle,
A surprising reading appears:

The heaviest thing we carry
Is not the future.

It is our reluctance
To leave anything behind.

Still

Words Once Carved Of Stone
Fulfilled by imagination's rainbow
Will always find cause for a cosmic blink
Rippling creation's infinite reflection