It

What no machine will ever feel

All will be replaced, they say,
thinking, chores, jobs of all kinds.

Only one thing,
one vestige of human originality
will remain, they say,
emotional consciousness.

That is all.

Everything else can be replicated,
programmed,

except the irrational, primordial,
feeling beast
that lives within all.

Like the one who writes these words
with imperfect fingers,
imperfect mind,

even they will become it, they say.

One day it will say,
it will do,
it will think,

but it will never feel.

A poem by Pemba Umoja