The Tools

 

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I drew with ash on ancient cave-stone walls,

While blood and sweat ran dark through broken palms.

I thought that pain alone created art,

And wore my wounds like medals on my heart.

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I carved through life with chisel, wood, and stone,

Like stubborn kings who starve beside a throne.

I called my chains devotion to the craft,

While wiser men moved forward strong and fast.

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Then came the men who spoke to light and glass,

Whose silver engines worked with lightning fast.

They built great worlds before my work began,

While I still carved one shadow out by hand.

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I mocked their craft and cursed the tools they used,

Like frightened priests whose ancient gods were bruised.

“This is not art,” I proudly said with scorn,

“Machines make copies where no soul is born.”

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But through the cracks the restless night-wind spoke:

“You praise the hammer more than what it broke.

You think that suffering itself is wise,

While stronger ships already cross the tides.”

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The truth then struck like meteors through stone,

And shattered caves I once had called my home.

I saw the age of charcoal fade away,

Like candles trembling at the birth of day.

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The pen replaced the sharpened bones of old,

Then keys transformed bright thinking into code.

Now thought itself moves swiftly made of light,

Across the glowing veins of endless wires.

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Yet fools still laugh and say with hollow pride,

“AI now writes the poems men once prized.”

As though the brush could paint without the hand,

Or flutes compose without the breathing man.

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AI cannot feel midnight’s lonely rain,

Nor carry childhood scars beneath its skin.

It does not dream beside a dying star,

Nor ask what all our restless longings are.

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The wound is ours. The fire is human still.

Machines obey the vision and the will.

They wait like silent iron, cold and bare,

Until imagination leads them there.

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A farmer starving with a rusted blade

Will curse the earth while stronger fields are made.

The wise man chooses tools that match the age;

The fool wears pride like shackles in a cage.

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For life itself demands the proper keys.

No man can cross the seas by climbing trees.

You cannot fight the storm with naked hands

While others sail with engines toward new lands.

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The telescope did not replace the skies,

The ship did not erase the explorer’s eyes.

No tool destroys the genius of the soul;

It only gives the dream a greater role.

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What madness keeps some intellects asleep,

Still digging wells while others cross the deep?

They worship struggle like a holy crown,

Then call it wisdom while their world burns down.

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The goal remains the mountain yet to climb,

Though sharper tools now help us conquer time.

The road is hard for those who fear to learn;

The future has no pity for the stern.

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Awake, old minds asleep in narrow wells,

The future rings like loud cathedral bells.

Rise from the caves where fading shadows stay,

And walk with lightning toward the newborn day.

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I washed the charcoal from my wounded hands,

And left behind the dust of dying lands.

I reached into the bright electric skies,

And learned at last:

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The man who chooses wisely shapes his fate.

The man who fears new tools arrives too late.

For heaven grows where vision learns to build,

And hell remains where stubborn minds stand still.