All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace

 

All Watched Over
by Machines of Loving Grace

by Richard Brautigan

I’d like to think (and
the sooner the better!)
of a cybernetic meadow
where mammals and computers
live together in mutually
programming harmony
like pure water
touching clear sky.I like to think
   (right now, please!)
of a cybernetic forest
filled with pines and electronics
where deer stroll peacefully
past computers
as if they were flowers
with spinning blossoms.

I like to think
   (it has to be!)
of a cybernetic ecology
where we are free of our labors
and joined back to nature,
returned to our mammal brothers and sisters,
and all watched over
by machines of loving grace.

 

I’ve  been reading Brautigan’s ”Trout Fishing in America”, which is only ostensibly about trout fishing in america. He’s a fascinating character. After years in obscurity, and a period of “convalescence” (including ECT) after being diagnosed as schizophrenic, he achieved critical acclaim for his poems and novels. When The Beatles set up their artsy-fartsy spoken word label “Zapple”, he was their first signing. Allen Klein wouldn’t let them release it, but it came out on Harvest a few years later.

“All of us have a place in history. Mine is clouds.”-Richard Brautigan