The Cloud

Michael J Leach

Up in the cloud, energy flows
here & there – it comes & it goes
between new devices & apps
to fill corporate service gaps
& remedy mass storage woes.

This amorphous net sometimes goes
down, leaving us all in the throes
of reacting to thunder claps
up in the cloud.

Privacy keeps us on our toes;
those tireless hackers always pose
threats to all us chapettes & chaps
with data stored beyond our laps.
                              Firewalls rise as a sunburst glows

up in the cloud.

The Science

This poem conveys several benefits and limitations of a rapidly evolving branch of computer science called ‘cloud computing’. In cloud computing, information technology resources such as applications or apps are shared amongst organisational and individual users via energy waves passing through an extensive computer network. Since this network has been described as amorphous and cloudlike, it is one of the few modern scientific concepts to have been named after a metaphor: ‘the cloud’. While the cloud offers users benefits such as on-demand remote access and mass data storage, it is limited by problems such as unpredictable outages and security issues.

The Poet

Michael J Leach is an Australian statistician, academic, and poet. His poems have appeared in Cordite, Meniscus, The Mathematical Intelligencer, the Medical Journal of Australia, The Sciku Project, Plumwood Mountain, GRAVITON, the Antarctic Poetry Exhibition, and elsewhere. Michael’s debut poetry collection – a science-themed chapbook – is forthcoming from Melbourne Poets Union.

Next poem: The Future of Work by Matt Dye