I've just come across this poem by Richard Brautigan, one of many free poems he handed out in the streets of San Francisco circa 1968. Since he distributed it in that fashion I'm sure he would have no objection to my reproducing it here on the streets of cyberspace. Incidentally, he was poet-in-residence at California Institute of Technology in 1966-67. I like this hippy vision of the flower generation but how does it compare with our current experience, almost 40 yrs later? Maybe he pre-visioned the Eden project, high-tech and green?
All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace
by Richard Brautigan
I'd like to think (and
the sooner the better!)
of a cybernetic meadow
where mammals and computers
live together in mutually
programming harmony
like pure water
touching clear sky.I like to think
(right now, please!)
of a cybernetic forest
filled with pines and electronics
where deer stroll peacefully
past computers
as if they were flowers
with spinning blossoms.I like to think
(it has to be!)
of a cybernetic ecology
where we are free of our labors
and joined back to nature,
returned to our mammal brothers and sisters,
and all watched over
by machines of loving grace.
Reprinted in The Pill versus The Springhill Mine
Disaster, copyright 1968 by Richard Brautigan.
The work can be found at http://www.redhousebooks.com/galleries/freePoems/allWatchedOver.htm
