On Rereading Norbert Wiener’s The Human Use of Human Beings at 75

Between humans and machines,
feedback loops of love and grace.
This could be so, he writes.
Less robotic ourselves, we could
live more in dreams, less in routine.

Things that made us weak and strange
can be designed around:
servos here, neural networks there,
pieces of bone and skeins of hair,
become beautiful and deep.

With each machine, we make a mirror
think of ourselves as we can think
of it. The images come back,
new, but we recognize them
as something almost known before.

Each web hides its spider.
There is discomfort because of this.
As it should be. Control, yes,
but a rare freedom to a certain extent…
freedom is always a possibility.

We’re old enough to be friends.
Let each species be good to the other.
Let there be trade between us…
feedback loops of love and grace
between machines and humans.