Prompts Instead of Bread

By Ethan Le

--

The century teaches us to rely on robotics, playing friendly with an artificial being. We celebrate machines that string words together,

while children in Gaza

string empty water bottles

across scorched courtyards,

praying for a drop of rain in the barren wasteland.

Knowledge once asked us to sweat,

to wrestle with silence,

to carve meaning by hand.

Now we drift, weightless,

our thoughts prefabricated,

our days dissolving into the hum of servers.

These machines drink whole rivers,

yet cannot quench

a single thirst.

Students are told this is learning.

But what is learned,

if questions are answered

before they are even born?

What is progress,

if it fattens the cloud

while flesh and soil wither?

The screen offers comfort,

a horizon of endless prompts.

But to sit still in comfort

is to watch the world collapse politely.

The work of our generation

is not to polish machines,

but to remember the weight of water,

the urgency of hunger,

the stubborn spark of thought

that resists replacement.

Let us be clouds that rain,

not clouds that hoard.