Here in the rural area where I live in Tarlton, Gauteng, South Africa, telephone poles are becoming a thing of the past. The copper wire has been stolen so many times that Telkom has abandoned the land-line system and resorted to a satellite telephone system. I’ll miss the poles and lines in the landscape, they provided great perches for birds of prey and congregating swallows before they leave on their great winter migration up North.
I AM a copper wire slung in the air,
Slim against the sun
I make not even a clear line of shadow
Night and day I keep singing—humming and thrumming:
It is love and war and money; it is the fighting and
the tears, the work and want,
Death and laughter of men and women passing through
me,
carrier of your speech,
In the rain and the wet dripping, in the dawn and the
shine drying,
A copper wire.
- Carl Sandburg
::
