Sam Gardiner
Electric Poem
To come home after nights without power
to batteries rolling about exhausted,
computer candlelit and TV staring,
is to know that what makes a home
is electricity, being able to whisper ‘I’m back’
to the suppressed excitement of cables
everywhere buried alive, ready to burst into
light and music, and oven smells, and print.
Tonight you can give the power station turbine
an extra turn in appreciation of the copper-headed,
moonlighting electrician you were lucky to find,
who can shock Perspex logs into life,
walk between ceiling joists while peeling a cable,
unfold himself limb by limb from the cupboard
(only the wiry win through) and switch from alpha
to beta the rhythms that jolt the heart.
An electrician is trained to hide things
under and over, behind and inside whatever,
and says that when he’s gone you’ll need
an electrometer to know where he’s been.
And of course the Creator was an electrician
with elementary particles in his care,
not a carpenter. And certainly not a plumber.
to batteries rolling about exhausted,
computer candlelit and TV staring,
is to know that what makes a home
is electricity, being able to whisper ‘I’m back’
to the suppressed excitement of cables
everywhere buried alive, ready to burst into
light and music, and oven smells, and print.
Tonight you can give the power station turbine
an extra turn in appreciation of the copper-headed,
moonlighting electrician you were lucky to find,
who can shock Perspex logs into life,
walk between ceiling joists while peeling a cable,
unfold himself limb by limb from the cupboard
(only the wiry win through) and switch from alpha
to beta the rhythms that jolt the heart.
An electrician is trained to hide things
under and over, behind and inside whatever,
and says that when he’s gone you’ll need
an electrometer to know where he’s been.
And of course the Creator was an electrician
with elementary particles in his care,
not a carpenter. And certainly not a plumber.
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