Sonnets To JenniCam I, 1

April 3, 1996: First ever picture on JenniCam

A grin arose. Oh pure superabundance! Oh Jenni smiles! Oh wide grin in the eye! And all grew still. But in this very silence a new beginning, sign and change was nigh. Watchers gathered on the silent clear unhurried network, out of dorm and class; and so it was, their gentle quietness was not born out of cunning or of fear but just from seeing. Lecture, lab, exam seemed tiny in their hearts. Before the cam, their staring souls had been without a home, forced like gypsies through the web to roam with bleary eyes and fingertips that tremble, - now in their sight, you slaved to build a temple.

San Jose, July 1998

In addition to being a tribute to Jenni, this poem is also a satire of R. M. Rilke's "Sonnets to Orpheus I, 1".