Vint Cerf : brief homage / bref hommage

Vint Cerf (seated) with members of the Board of ICANN, Los Angeles, 2 November 2007. (Photo taken with an E90 from Nokia, but it's really not their fault).
Vint Cerf (assis), entouré de membres du Directoire de ICANN, Los Angeles, 2 novembre 2007 (photo prise avec un E90 de Nokia, mais ce n'est pas de leur faute).


A combination rare
Lines for Vint Cerf on his leaving ICANN

Mathematical combinations allow 
intensity of individuals in reverse proportion to their numbers
Laws of gravity 
would have us cling to the floor
with ponderous convictions
Psychology predicts
that extroverts, like old photographs
wane with exposure, even to their own brightness
The growing cohort of Internet man mesmerized by 
the screen, parietal art of our modern caverns,
Seeks distant links, missing closer ones

Yet this man defies
these laws. His gravitas is 
experience assumed
His knowlegde more the magnetic lode in the migrant bird than
weighty epitaphs that some, yet alive, lug behind
He listens also with his eyes
thus siezing intent more than declaration
His sharp mind can be impatient with
belaboured reasoning but
His benevolence counsels him to skirt irony
and he offers instead
the discoverer's vitality

A combination rare

                                      
                                                                             JJS, from LAX to LUX, 3.11.2007