Notes About The Poem

Gimme back the immigrant of old against whom I had a chance...

Digital Immigrants

A new immigrant now comes:
I see him on our streets,
I see him on the factory floor,
I see him at an old friend's desk--
How I would that there he would stop!
But robots they are: neither modesty nor empathy
they know.

He doesn't look like us
And won't speak our language;
Our culture he regards as sickness or weakness; 
Fun he scorns and labors all day 
And so is a favorite of the lords and gods 
That make and own the business world.

Against him closed borders are no defense, 
And from him scarce a job is secure--
Except, of course, in politics and poetry.
From those worlds our solace will come--
The muscle of vision and that of words
By which one day to claw back our world.

It's best, though, that it never comes to this:
If robots truly have come of age
Their father's house they should leave alone
And their own go build on faraway Mars.
Be they warned that "the meek shall inherit 
the earth"
And that meekness ever is on our side
Copyright © | Year Posted 2017

Poem

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Radhakrishna Avatar
December 4, 2019 at 1:21 PM
Very nicely written. Very relevant to the present day.
Pigeon Tart Avatar
December 25, 2017 at 11:02 PM
Such a sharp penning Agona! And your foreword, I read it after the poem, it on its own is a lightning bolt! Blessings xomo
Apell Avatar
January 13, 2018 at 3:03 PM
Maureen, I am delighted that you consider it so. We are on the threshold exciting but foggy times. Lord knows what the world of robots shall be like. Thanks for the kind words!
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