Pondlight Antiphon

There's a COBOL deck on my desk that's older than my dad

The 'HELLO WORLD' mug from my mum,

the last shot I had

The PR's been sitting for three days with nobody to review

I'm chasing a bug in a language that no one under fifty

knew

She called from Padua,

said "tesoro, your grinder is a crime"

I said "the burrs are fine" — we both knew I was

lying this time

The server room hums at 18 degrees,

the frogs outside at 22

And somewhere in between the compressor noise,

the truth comes through

The pond remembers, the chip steam fades Eighty columns and a promise

made The log is the truth,

the rest

is parades The pond remembers,

the chip steam fades

There's a raccoon in Oregon who doesn't know my name

He found a bin with chips in it and that's his claim

to fame He doesn't know about the internet or GIL or free-threaded

code He just woke up this morning happy to be on this

floating rock we're on I spent the afternoon debugging a WHERE clause

that was fine The bug was in my glasses — I'd been

staring at the wrong line

The raccoon never has this problem.

He just eats and walks around.

And somewhere in the ivy,

the real frogs make their sound

(spoken, over sparse piano and pond recording)

I used to think the permanent thing was the code.

But the code rots.

The frameworks cycle. The permanent thing is showing up.

The raccoon knows this.

He doesn't call it philosophy.

He just lives it.

The pond remembers...

the chip steam fades...

The truth is not the compiler,

it's the choice to stay The pond remembers...

the chip steam fades...

(just the pond recording,

fading) A frog croaks.

Silence. 🐸