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Monday, May 29, 2017

Ode to Technology

“Not my world alone,
but your world and my world,
belonging to all the hands who build.”

- Langston Hughes, “Freedom’s Plow”



“That electronic technology
that chains us today
in the prison of
unemployment lines
what could it do
in the hands
of the people”

- Lew Rosenbaum, “Ode to a Cell Phone”


We are sitting in a classroom
writing poems about technology
& our relationship to it…

reaching for words
to describe our lives

            their limitations & possibilities

striving to capture the feeling
of riding a train through underground tunnels
– the sound of it, that low metallic rush –

& people all around, on our phones,
connected through the World Wide Web

millions of invisible waves
travelling through the air,
bringing music to our earbuds,
images & words to our screens,
joining us in a vast global brain
of 7 billion
(miracle of miracles!)
this planetary network
of warp speed connectivity

from which we almost
never
look up

to actually
see  
each other.


We are trying to describe
the strange loneliness of this,
our age…

but also,
                        the comfort of silence,

the kindness of time spent
in transit, locomoting
from one place to another,
with nothing in particular to do,

& the gentle rocking of the train’s motion,
this soothing place
of being alone
(together, yes)
in a quiet kind of intimacy
that I actually enjoy,

here,
writing the poem,
pencil in hand,
scribing in this ancient system
called a book,

stitched by a friend of mine,
with a cover so soft
it eases my soul into a dream
in which my hand begins to fill these pages
with magical lines & dots & circles
that mean things:     

“human”
“history”
  “time”
            “evolution”


(sometimes
i like to think of myself as a kind of tool
for a greater process

not god, necessarily,
– unless you like to think so, as I do –

but you, & us, & everyone,
our species & our mother,
earth)

these hands build
poems, songs, beats, workshops,
concerts, culture,
sandwiches…

they write, they strum, they type
these words
composed by billions of tiny
invisible hands
firing in my brain,

which wonders, now,

what your hands do,
& your brain?

& whatever the answer,
i say

bless the hands!
& bless the brain!

bless the work that is yours,
your contribution…

isn’t this what makes us human?

not the labor,
but the way we share it?
not our stuff,
but the world we create from it
together?

Listen,
people…

Allen was a copy editor for Sun Times, for 23 years,
until he & 600 others got squeezed out by technology…

Lew was a manager at a branch of Barnes & Noble
fired for not wringing the last drop of sweat
out of his workers

Diana was a teacher
slowly shoved out of her classroom
by ready-made materials
from Pearson & Scholastic,
by  “data analysis” & test prep

so much for her hours of conversations
with students in her Beowulf unit
about real-life heroes
like the Freedom Riders
& Water Protectors

now she must look for new ways
to teach & learn.


but,
       Listen –

who, do you think,
is replaceable
in this story
really?

what
is truly
obsolete?

& what if they
– the millions newly deemed disposable –

themselves replaced
the few who have no vision?

Imagine, friends, for just a moment,

the computers taking over the jobs,
& us taking over the computers…

Friends,
to be honest,

I never wanted
to be shackled to a classroom
having spent so many days & years
abhorring them,

but still I’m here
in a different school every day
talking, listening,
trying to master the art of dialogue

because, you see,
this is my most precious tool
&, I think,
our most invincible
weapon

& this is why I’m writing,
speaking to you,

family,

i want to imagine with you, perhaps,
this very place, the same, but different,

i want all of us to visualize
doing the things we most love:

reading, writing,
telling stories,
dancing, strumming a guitar,
painting, gardening,
walking through a forest with the dog,
biking along the lake,
or hiking dew-wet mountain trails,

swimming in the ocean,
studying stars
or history, or Torah,
teaching our youth how to live, how to learn,
how to break dance,
how to make medicinal blends of tea,

or maybe, simply,
sitting quietly with our grandparents,
sipping coffee, making pancakes,
listening to records, or Spotify playlists,
watching movies, playing soccer in the yard
with our nieces & nephews,
with all our relations

(We are all related… )

Relatives,

here is a corner of my imagination,
take it.

stretch with me
as wide as possible:

let’s flex our collective mind
into a portrait of you & me
doing all of these things

freely, meaning,
without any money
& without coercion

simply because we are
what we are –

can you imagine

            a grocery store where nobody has to stand outside
panhandling for food?

a street where no one has to sleep,
or choose between medicine & lights & heat?

& nobody having to stand in the way
of bulldozers coming to turn up the graves
of their great grandmothers & fathers

& no people killed on the street by police
& yes, let’s say it, no police

do we dare picture it?

Comrades,

close your eyes, if you want –
& imagine waking up in bed
knowing every person in the world
has slept warm & safe last night, & every night,
& every morning eating breakfast
with every single one of the 7 billion,
drinking your coffee knowing
that any human hands growing the coffee beans
have worked the land with dignity,
& possess all the time in the world
to rock their own babies to sleep

try to imagine the taste
of food made without the torture of people,
land, animals, or water,

& maybe even
passing a whole day through
from dawn to dusk

without once worrying,
or working a job,

other than what flows
from our own beating hearts

… a never-ending summer vacation…
an eternal Sabbath…


My people,

what would you give
if you could give anything?

if you were free
to receive & to give
all of nature

the way the river feeds its neighbors,
& the forest shelters the owls?

the way the rain waters the prairies,
& children, freely, play…


oh, the days
we’ll spend in the sun,
& the dreams
we’ll dream by night

which we now
cannot


even
dream!!

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