Even as a 30 year old man, I am already seeing the changes of modern society. While some of the changes in society are advances, many leave me questioning whether they are positive and reminiscing for “the way things used to be”. 

Friendships are based online and often more face time is in front of a screen instead of in a person’s actual presence. There’s more mental illness and unhappiness than ever before. More busyiness when technology is meant to reduce our workload. Are we really advancing or just stripping away all that makes us human and replacing it with machines? 

“The Deathbed Confession of An Old Woman”

My soul aches,

quakes with the rumble of ancient pain.

Grief abides by my side as an unwelcomed companion

and remains though the seasons change.

These bones are dry –

baked brittle beneath the sweltering heat of time

and are crumbling to dust like a ghost town,

forgotten on a once frequently followed road.

See these hands…

rough, grainy like sand, withered and old?

Written upon them, my life’s story is told.

And the story is slowly fading away –

my town buried by-and-by beneath the dirt of decay.

The way home some days seems so far away.

The paths I walked as a child

have been paved over by city blocks.

Silent stops, which I paused to ponder at beauty –

plucked like a wildflower in the country on a warm summer’s day –

now have wilted and lost their roots.

Down on the farm, the chickens no longer cluck.

Technological advances now roost in their coops.

Am I to quietly drift out

with the changing of the tide?

Paint on a clown’s smile

when inside I’m horrified?

These aren’t just the moans of an old woman

nagging against generational change.

It’s the magnitude of what’s been lost…

It’s the little we’ve gained…

The modern era has numbed you –

rocked you in the cradle to the ambience of machines

instead of your mother’s soothing voice.

They’ve sold you the lie that life has become easier,

yet you’ve neglected to weigh the cost of your choice,

and muted your ears when Chaos triumphantly rejoiced.

But Chaos, I hear you loud and clear

shouting deafeningly across the nation.

Turning children’s eyes to marvel at metal and pixelated color

instead of the beauty of God’s incomparable creation.

So, no. I won’t go quietly.

I refuse to “go gentle into that good night”.

For “old age should burn and rave at close of day”.

I will “rage, rage against the dying of the light”

until this old heart can beat no more.

You can pass my wisdom off as foolish,

once believed lore.

But long will my voice live on

in your weary heart when I’m gone,

when your screens of comfort need recharged,

and Truth rocks you restless, laying wide-awake

with tired eyes in the midnight hours of morn.

My soul aches,

quakes, but not due to my own soon-coming demise.

But because humanity has not matured in my lifetime,

rather relapsed into bratty girls and boys

who throw aside morals and values 

to play with the newest toys.

– Poem Written by Justin Farley

* Quotation taken from “Do not go gentle into that good night” by Dylan Thomas

photo credit: talourcera the ring of her Lord – me perteneces via photopin (license)