Poetry
Where’s the Voltage to Power My Way Through the Day?
A poem of frustration and adaptation
little tense not present, past or future life sentence no pretense wounds to suture
melt in the heat downbeat second guessing mind messing find a blessing
how to greet another day a different way
turn on router wi-fi scooter laptop ready hands are steady Go!
write — no wait too late the power’s off again neurons spark but not enough to charge the batteries (not mine — they’re ready to create)
signal weak no internet I cannot tweak Though fingers speak And ideas jump but body slumps
have to write by hand please understand I can hardly grip a pen fingers old and bent
I accept what is but in a tizz when this country still insists on burning coal at failing plants that creak and moan suffering from old age I rage at the delay, why can’t they capture wind and sun
A better life for everyone?
Backstory
I wrote this poem to ease my tension.
Our power utility, Eskom, used to be the doyen in the world of electricity supply. But decades of neglect, corruption and indecision, coupled with a new energy plan gathering dust in the corridors of history since 1998, have let to load-shedding becoming a regular occurrence.
Our coal-fired power plants are tired. Yet renewable energy plans tabled fifteen years ago, for solar and wind, sit at the roadblock of antiquated legislation that allows the state the monopoly on electricity supply.
Each time the State appoints a new CEO, the message is ‘we’ll now conduct scheduled maintenance on our units and this will reduce the need for rolling power outages.’
Lies, lies, and more lies.
On Thursday, Eskom announced power cuts from Thursday to Sunday. This entailed my being off line for two 150-minute shifts over those days. (These times change daily.)
(Not to mention that the previous Sunday the lights went off at 11 pm and only returned at 9 am on the Monday — that’s our local municipality, not the national grid which feeds into towns and cities.)
Being of a suspicious mind, I checked the City of Tshwane (Pretoria) on Twitter to make sure Monday will be free of interruptions. Lo-and-behold — jeering at me from my laptop screen is today’s schedule. Our area is off 11 am–1.30 pm today and again 7pm to 9.30 pm tonight.
They lied again!
Learning to be flexible tires me; chopping and changing what I’m going to do when I have a partner to look after, plus laundry, cooking, cleaning, ironing, veggie gardening (which I don’t mind at all) and — writing.
Guilt creeps in when I can’t read as many stories from other writers as I’d like to. Impossible to build structure into my day — something my mental scaffolding prefers.
But why complain? There are millions around the world who don’t have electricity at all — and many more with no access to potable water.
I’ll count my blessings and thank you for being here!
Play this for a huge dose of happiness:
