Power Cut

Today, for a brief interval, we experienced an unusual event
There was a power cut – or outage as they call it in the US
I say unusual because it seems to happen very rarely
And I thought it must simply have been a bulb
That had burned out and blown our fuses
But no, the fuses all seemed undisturbed

And so it dawned on us that our vital energy supply
Had suddenly been removed. The spark extinguished
And all at once a number of unfamiliar beeps pulsated
From devices unused to service interruption
Little red lights flashed, and LCD displays closed their eyes
Even the Smart Meter discovered it was not quite smart enough

And then one starts to wonder if other aspects of our virtual life
Have been threatened by the removal of the magic flow of electrons
What if our planned recordings on the Tivo box are sabotaged?
What about those anxiously awaited emails. The calendar
perhaps set into disarray. The reminder messages forgotten?
More important – what about tonight’s cryogenic chicken in the freezer!

Of course all of this is simply emblematic of our dependency
Without the power we have rendered ourselves powerless
No communications, no heat and light, no monitoring or control
Much of our supply of news and entertainment gone AWAL
And unless you have your home generator, how will you manage
From your nonexistent stash of batteries and candles?

Still, in days of yore humankind survived somehow
Perhaps we have all become too reliant
We cannot believe that the rupture of these vital lines
The exhaustion of non-renewable resources
Or just a simple technical glitch can thus render us hopeless
Thank goodness the power returned in ten minutes
Perhaps it was all just a brief nightmare!

Ken Fisher