Software With Known Errors
I know software as soft as walking in a meadow.
This software waits
in female rows and columns.

Its instructions are all braided upon themselves;
they are benevolent snakes on the head
of an average medieval lady, coiled and ready.

This soft software waits,
waits for the average knight to call.

The ride from the next parish will have made him unrealistic.

Blisters will have worn his shield hand sore;
he will use his zinc-tipped lance to knock on the
castle door.

Dogs will bark then, and the maids and stablehands
will hurry to trap the gossip, returns, and possible errors.

I know how software sits in its disciplined sectors,
regular Argentine soldiers in their barracks.

It waits with the patience of Teilhard's rocks
to be called to life. 

I know software which waits like my heart
for a vocation.

I know software so soft that its murmurs
tell, like the uncolored inside of veins,
the history of creation, and which remembers
the red car envied that August night at the drive-in.

I know software as soft as walking in a meadow.



James Bolner, Sr.
Baton Rouge, LA
June 6, 1993