OpenMike: Poetry in Motion

October 2003

Poetry in Motion

OpenMike is a guest editorial space and talking point for the 3000 community to express its views. In an era where emotion and analysis run abreast for the community’s attention, we want OpenMike to be a forum for the way you feel about the future and what you believe is important to the 3000 community. Send your contributions of less than 1,500 words for consideration to editor@3000newswire.com.

By Donna Garverick

I was asked to write something about MPE/iX’s impending end-of-sales date, to write an obituary befitting the HP 3000. Nothing quite like doing an “add water and stir” and have “instant profundity” as a result.

Since the Internet can be the diary of our global village, I gleaned some thoughts from there and have mixed them with my own. This process caused me to recall the day I got the news. It was shocking, unbelievable. From “She Dwelt Among the Untrodden Ways” by William Wordsworth:

Today the news came unexpectedly. Is one ever ready?

I grappled with the idea that MPE, my steadfast “friend,” might not always be there…

Can He be replaced?
I don’t see how.
He was my buddy.
He was my pal.

I thought of all the days and nights I’ve spent working on some problem, but always confident that MPE wouldn’t let me down. But what about the future?

At night I lay and think of you
hoping my wishes and dreams come true
At night I wonder can this be the end
is this all that’s left
At night I wish we could go to the way things were.

I have always known, and I think we all have known too, how small the MPE community is compared to the others.

She dwelt among the untrodden ways
Beside the springs of Dove,
A Maid whom there were none to praise
And very few to love

In the end however, I am unwilling to write an obituary, befitting or otherwise. Call me a dreamer. Call me naïve. I remain convinced of MPE’s future. It will survive because that’s been MPE’s legacy from day one. From “The Road Not Taken” by Robert Frost:

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I —
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

Join OpenMPE. Keep the faith. Join the fight to survive.

Donna Garverick manages HP 3000s for Long’s Drug and sits on the OpenMPE board.