Living By Stewardship Poem by Ananta Madhavan

Villiers de l'Isle-Adam, a French symbolist writer
Of aristocratic lineage, was a 19th century romantic
Who dabbled in poetry, fiction and also authored
A melodrama of buried treasure, a tragic love affair.

Axel was the name. The play would be forgotten
But for one line in the dialogue, where the hero,
Disenchanted with his role, utters a cynical dictum:
"Living? The servants will do it for us".

In our time, starting year 2016, do we not
Live by deputy, with "stewards of our excellence"
To run the circuits and the processes
Ensuring that life goes on as usual, despite

Failures of power, rioting mobs, flouters
Of traffic rules, over-takers, undertakers,
Anarchists and rebels, despots and mob-rule,
Yet somehow keep our urbane culture ticking?

An era may come perhaps when futurist robotics
Will be our substitutes; apart from serving us
At cafes, airports, offices, R2D2 may prove superior
As thinkers, inventors, artists of genius.

Our "mute inglorious Miltons", Einsteins,
Thomas Alva Edisons and cell-phones,
Our law and order fixation, our press, TV panels,
All will be made obsolete. Robots Rule, OK?

On this New Year I cannot envisage
Artificial Intelligence as a power beyond
Sensing the cloud-layered sky at dawn,
The tactile thrill of loving hands, the ecstasy of song.

- - - - - - - - - -

The third stanza alludes to Shakespeare's Sonnet 94,
where he says that 'They that have power to hurt and
will do none' are the 'lords and owners of their faces,
Others but stewards of their excellence'.

'Mute inglorious Milton' is a phrase in Thomas Gray's
famous 'Elegy in a Country Churchyard'