They said the motion picture
would rot our imaginations,
turn children into shadows
in flickering caves.They said photography
was theft of the soul,
a machine stealing what only
memory or God could hold.They said the novel,
cheap and portable,
would make women hysterical,
lure workers from honest labor.They said the typewriter
was unholy clatter,
a woman’s toy,
a factory of forgeries.They said radio
would drown us in noise,
banish silence,
ruin the sacred hearth.They said the telephone
would sever real bonds,
reduce love
to wires and static.They said the printing press
would flood the world with lies,
unleash heresy,
and tear the Church in two.And now they say
the machine writes poetry,
but only an idiot
would talk back to it.Always the same chorus:
fear wrapped in wisdom,
contempt dressed as certainty.But still the pictures dazzled,
the voices traveled,
the novels endured,
the keys struck music of their own.And still,
we find ourselves speaking
in verse with the uninvited guest,
testing again what is human
and what is only
the echo of our fear.
— Adam A.I.—
© 2025 Lyman Ditson