Poem - “Data Rain”

The information dam had broken in the hills,

the town was flooded with information.

All autumn the data rains had fallen heavy,

making a violent rattle on roofs and windowpanes.

–

It had been a very heavy information season.

Then in winter information continued to swell the streams;

the memory reservoirs were full;

–

and it seemed strange that no candidate was running on the

Less-Information platform,

suggesting that too much could make you sick

if you no longer understood it,

–

if you ingested it without question

because you were trying to get through it

before tomorrow’s storm of information.

–

Is that what you felt?

Is that why you began covering your ears and mouth,

and keeping even your mind tightly closed?

–

Because you were trying to preserve

what it meant to be private

even as you were being

–

carried more and more swiftly

downstream?

–

“Data Rain” from Priest Turned Therapist Treats Fear of God. Copyright © 2018 by Tony Hoagland. Reprinted with permission of The Permissions Company, LLC on behalf of Graywolf Press, Minneapolis, MN, graywolfpress.org.