connections

How difficult sometimes
to make the right connections
to solve a puzzle or a problem
understand a work of art
or get from A to B on train
or bus, to telephone for information
that only some remote call centre has.

So easy once,
just lifting the receiver,
waiting for the operator's voice
asking which connection you required.
Number twelve, you'd say,
and hear her voice again, Ah,
Mrs Bradfield in the High Street -
often not at home this time of day...

And all connections came that easily, back then.
The transport ones for instance:
we'd step from one into the next -
and always home by tea.

These days the web connects us
to a host of folk we only think we know
and to a thousand treasure caves
of source, resource and reference.

but behind the changing scenes of life's connections
are a million billion constant ones
on which the rest depend,
connections that we make and break unknowingly -
and certainly not knowing how or why -
each moment of our lives.
Their very number is beyond
all our conceiving.
We make and break them in the brain. They make it
possible for us to breathe,
to eat, walk, talk and think -
and build connections on the web
and in our daily lives.
...............................................
Linking to Brian Miller's theme Thursday of the same title.