For the past few months, I have been receiving writing prompts each Wednesday from a professional writer.  One recent prompt encouraged us to write an "ode."  Here is my attempt to do so:

Ode to My Cell Phone

by Dennis Herman

 O, my constant friend and companion,

You warm my palm with your radiance,

And give me comfort to know

The world is at my touch.

You glow in the night

To assure me that care is

Just a password away.

You transport me back home,

To family I now see on

Face Time, and visit

On Zoom.

 

O, Great Wonder, the fulfiller of the dream,

Of going everywhere, knowing everything.

Into your ear, I can speak questions

And make commands:

“Directions to Bob Lewis Sports Complex,”

“Fastest route to Pizza Mind Café,”

“How to clean high gutters safely,” and

“Take me to the closest ER!”

You do not mind my tone of voice,

Indifferent to my state of mind.

 

You lead me to the still waters of my tranquility app,

You restore my soul with Buechner quotes,

And anoint me with Butler-Bass essays.

If I make my bed in Candler Motel Six or Biltmore Estate,

You are there.

 

Unimpassioned, you give just the facts,

Pleasantly indifferent to the politics du jour,

But willing to let me

Read of the most heinous, horrid,

And despicable of events.

I love you because you have no brain,

Or soul, or ability to judge,

But allow me to do the thinking,

To seek, to find, to discern.

Thank you, dear friend, and

Stay close, my codependent enabler,

My rod and my staff.

You are both dumb and brilliant.

You are the composite of the world’s knowledge,

And the non-compostable of tomorrow’s earth.

 

I may be lost without you, wise one.

May your battery stay strong.

May you avoid viruses,

And may you never, ever, ever,

Lose my contact list.