A Hero's March

~ Lauren ~

Lauren has been doing computer tutoring at the library recently, teaching people (mostly elders) to get online, to do internet searches, and to use email and instant messaging. This poem grew out of her deep appreciation for the heroic challenge that many old--and not so old!--people face as they confront an often bewildering new technology.

A Hero's March

In my eyes, she is a hero.
I smell cookies and pumpkin pie
whenever she comes for a lesson,
and always I think how much her
grandchildren must love her.
But hunched at the monitor,
she seems tiny and insecure.
Gentle eyes examine the screen as
she looks out from a face lined with
graceful wrinkles.
Her frail hands touch the keys,
tentative,
like a child on her first day of school.
Bravely, she types:
"w-w-w"
dot.
And then it's like watching a sunrise;
because suddenly she is reading me an
email from her daughter in California,
and asking how to print the
"Very Scrumptious Double Chocolate Cake" recipe.
She's beaming as she collects her papers,
and I grin as she leaves,
because her step is a hero's march.

(You can visit Lauren's home page at www.members.cox.net/ac1dsh1vers)

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