DIS-CURSIVE by Elliot Wilner

DIS-CURSIVE

I enjoy writing with my hand much more than typing email messages

Says my wife as she pauses to lift her pen from the stationery paper.

We’ve been largely confined to our home due to covid and her illness

So she’s had ample time to write Thank You notes to friends far and near

Who have mailed her Get Well cards and shipped flowers or chocolates.

What I ask is it about writing in your own hand that you enjoy so much?

She answers to my surprise that she really enjoys the effort of writing,

The manipulation of a pen the meticulous crafting of cursive characters

That join to form words, the graceful flow of the script across the page.

Thanks for sending a note writes my wife to a friend though I can’t see   

Your face at least I can see your hand.

I fondly remember letters – now a rarity – that once were mailed to me.

Then a glance at the sender’s cursive script told me who was he or she

As surely as would that person’s face voice mannerisms and personality.

That was a long time ago before inception of our present dis-cursive era.

Now one person’s 12pt New Roman is just like another’s 12pt New Roman

Isn’t it?  Children aren’t taught cursive anymore and that’s a bad omen

For a society starkly riven that dotes on technology and shuns humanism.

Many a young citizen who has achieved much hasn’t learned to sign their

Own name: A signature failure of our age.