Is your computer the Blessed Mother, Jesus Christ, or God the Father?
Is it your lifelong companion, your soulmate in an eternal dance?
Funny, I thought it a piss-poor partner at the cantina,
A dubious walking companion through Thoreau's immortal woods.
We've clear-cut a faster modem in your mind
To the DSL superhighway for an ultimate website to find.
And while you're there, with the Creator and all the Saints,
Forgive me if I ask, should there be a brown-out,
Will your happiness last?
What's the final URL for contact with your soul?
What's the domain name for eternity, and will it dot-com again?
And if your computer turns out the lights, programs the radio,
Waters the plants, and adjusts the humidity,
Can it bring wisdom to your frenzy? Can it sustain infamous love affairs?
Can it grant relationships a second chance? Damn it, can it?
I hear its programs can cut and paste and track the paths of satellites
I hear it charts the weather and the genetic code of mice
They tell me that it can balance checkbooks
And direct a laser to heal external sight.
Can your computer weave rings 'round Saturn, or create the fish of the sea?
Can it separate light from the darkness? Can your PC travel at speeds of light
Or change fate and circumstance? Can it bring understanding between nations
Or bring a semblance of balance to your life?
I want to know.
While we're at it, dog–nab–it, can your computer
Create a single comet to bridge mind-boggling distances
Between God's hangnail & His big toe?
You may think I'm being flip. A dip. A smarty-pants.
A smart aleck, or smart-ass. I sometimes wish, since
I'm so behind, that my delay became as enlightened
As my derriere has been praised to be wise. It's frightening
To imagine that folks will bond with their computers
But can't reach out to one another
When the power fails and lights decline.
I'm only one soul in the firmament
One spark in this vast sky. I'm a composite of my memories,
The sum of all my lives. And in this one I'd have to say
That I've had a few regrets. Yet I've enlivened
Each day passionately. Completely. In spite
Of momentary whims and some arbitrary ways.
Your companionship is priceless / your kisses are so warming.
When the lights have flickered / when this life maps its meandering paths,
I won't have to examine, my friend / whether you existed in it,
Here with me.
Although this is alarming, if some crazed hacker
Were to crack the codes and cause markets to freeze,
Mainframes to seize and computers to crash,
Your affection for me could never dim.
Your exquisite love would always remain
Undiminished in my triumphant days,
Glorious...
to the very end.
(Copyright 2001 by Darius Gottlieb - No reproduction without express permission from the author)