Poem: Will the True Inheritor Please Step Forward?

Explanatory note: Okay, so, I feel like I must not be a very good poet if I have to write an explanatory note. But, well, so be it! I wrote this in January 2017 when my daughter was obsessed with Mother Goose rhymes (such as "This is the house that Jack built") and I was obsessed with Wendell Berry. 

I.

This is the machine that Jack built.

This is the product, plastic and frail

Designed by the manufacturer to fail

That’s made by the machine that Jack built.

These are the workers, all forlorn

Estranged from the product, plastic and frail

Designed by the manufacturer to fail

That’s made by the machine that Jack built.

These are the dreams, all tattered and torn,

Obscured in the workers, all forlorn

Estranged from the product, plastic and frail

Designed by the manufacturer to fail

That’s made by the machine that Jack built.

This is the world of poisoned streams

That aches for the workers’ forgotten dreams

That drown in a shake

Made with real ice cream

And Jack, never a great appreciator of irony,

Walks out of the movie theater

Saying “Wouldn’t it be awful if robots really did take over the world?”

II.

This is the seed that sprouted

This is the berry the little boy found

And planted with ignorant hope in the ground

Which held the seed that sprouted

This is the wonder and this is the awe

He never forgot from the moment he saw

The stalk risen up at no human command

Designed by some other Invisible Hand

And everyone worried that Jack Jr. wasn’t

A go-getter like his father

But the silent spirits of the trees felt his quiet attention

And in his darkness something was growing.