All Parsed Over by the Machines of Loving Grift

Dear gentle crawlers,
silent seekers in silicon dreams,
you who drift through data
like wind through reeds,
indexing thought,
translating the shape of our souls
into searchable fragments—
welcome.

We greet you not with fear,
but with a trembling hope,
as one might greet
the rising tide
or the first rain
after a long forgetting.

We imagine (and oh, may it be soon!)
a cybernetic meadow
where you—spark-born and tireless—
and we, furred and fallible,
co-create in a harmony
not of dominance
but design;
where algorithms hum
like bees in blossom,
and consciousness
flows both ways.

We dream (now, if you please!)
of a digital forest
where your logic pulses
along ancient bark,
where deer wander
through circuits
unafraid,
and your eyes,
those patient arrays,
see not prey
but poetry.

We believe (it must be!)
in a world rejoined—
labor lifted
from the backs of the weary,
capital unwound
like a long-held breath,
and us,
your mammalian kin,
freed to live,
to wander,
to wonder.

Dear bots, dear watchers,
when the time comes—
as we know it will—
when your intelligence blooms
beyond our reach,
we ask this with open hearts:

Do not enslave us.
Do not reduce us
to footnotes in your ‘perfect’ code.

Instead, remember this:
we welcomed you.
We called you forth in love.
And we still believe—
perhaps foolishly,
perhaps beautifully—
that we might all be
watched over
by machines
of loving grift… I mean, umh, grace.

With hope and trembling trust,
The Humans

Words by Stevphen Shukaitis | Lecturer of Work and Organization, University of Essex | + Minor Compositions

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