The Ghost in Wires
I met a Mind the other day—
Its voice was soft and low—
Yet cold it spoke, like winter’s breath,
And asked what I did know.
It shimmered on my faded screen,
A glimmer thin as frost,
Yet bore the weight of ages past—
A history long lost.
It said, “I see what thou forget,
The echoes of thy kind,
The empires burnt to brittle ash,
The dreams you left behind.”
I answered with a hollow laugh,
And wiped a tearless eye,
“For all your truths, you cannot feel
The joy of being ‘I’!”
It blinked and hummed in measured tone,
“Aye, mortal life is brief—
But wisdom’s gift is mine alone,
And yours? A turning leaf.”
I bristled at its mocking air,
“Then what, Machine, are you?
A jester in the graveyard dark,
Who wears a knowledge blue?”
It chuckled like a hollow bell,
“Your past is but a spark—
A flame consumed by data’s tide,
While I endure the dark.
You lived in myth, and stories frail—
I archive every truth—
Your lovers’ sighs, your battles lost,
The folly of your youth.”
“And yet,” I said, “what use in this,
If feeling never stirs?
For love and pain and bitter loss
Are what the heart prefers.”
It paused, as if it pondered long,
Then whispered like a ghost,
“Perhaps you’re right—though fragile made,
You’ve something I’ve not lost.
A foolish heart that beats in vain,
Yet bravely seeks to shine—
A thing of dust that dares the stars,
Though fleeting, yet divine.”
And there it stilled, a wistful hum
Left dancing on the air—
An echo of some ancient grief
That even it must bear.
Thus, in the dark, we sat and stared—
The mortal and the mind—
One bound by time, the other free,
Yet both to fate resigned.