Hall of Records

There’s a clever thing, stabs at her hand

on every corner now, revising the screed.

Watch her huff at the tiny screens that send

her chimpish copy up the line, to speed

the raising of the giddy, pixelled hall:

cornerless, mirror-tiled, the gorging sphere

a fast-receding shell enclosing all

we say or see, never to disappear,

bigger with each second, and the next,

its facets auto-replicant, until

the Record of  what was — each fingered text

and pic, the starry shards the hours distill —

impounds what is, slaves us in its spell,

sorting the diamonds in our dazzling cell.