Poem: "Dust and Shadows"
Here is today's second freebie poem, courtesy of new prompter meeksp. It was inspired by jolantru who mentioned golems and androids. I've always been intrigued by the idea that humanity's creations spring forth because the urge to create is inherent in our own creation, our own nature -- contrasted here against the idea that a copy of a copy tends to be a degenerate thing.
Dust and Shadows
Legend tells of the golem,
thing of clay shaped by a rabbi's hands,
made to be a worker or a guardian --
made in man's image,
as man was made in G-d's image,
but a copy of a copy,
ever more flawed,
remaining as dumb and silent as the dust.
Today it is the android of which we whisper,
how it would save us so much work,
how it would also be such a danger to us,
this thing we might make from bright metal
that would be stronger than us should it rebel --
again, made by man in man's image,
strange shadow cast by divine light
against the coiled clay of our bones.
We too were made,
lesser things of lesser stuff,
unable to wrap our fumbling tongues
around the celestial wisdom --
yet something in us drives us to create,
shapes our clay hands around the things we make,
causes us to love even the dust and the shadows,
because there flickers in us a memory of sacred flame,
a kiln for which we reach to fire our dreams into truth --
something in us, something
that drives us mad if we deny it.