Welcome My Friend To The Machine

Question:
What happens when a long held dream is close to being fulfilled?

Discussion:
A couple of years ago, I was part of a proposal team at work.  We had applied for funding to build a next generation machine related to ultrasonics - it was our collective dream to say the least.  For the uninitiated, ultrasonics is the theory of high frequency sound waves (you can actually use them to join/bond materials).  After the proposal got awarded, I had had no role to play since I handed the project over to a colleague.  Fast forward to today - my colleague announces that the final concrete pour was taking place to build the machine foundation.  That announcement was inspiration enough for these words.  I hope you enjoy them and get the references!  Some italicized references are internal to the company and general readers will not get them (sorry).

Every machine was dreamed

By an engineer on an idle stretch

Even Rome was built in a day

Sometimes twice in artist’s sketch

Robin questions intelligent human design

Waste processing next to reproduction?

Darwin shows imperfection leaving

The human machine, undergoing evolution.

(Neo) Standing on machine level

We cannot help but notice the irony.

We use one set of machines to fight

Another, that become our enemy.

Here lie interred vibratory dreams

Careful - leave them un-exhumed

Lest you release the aspirations within

To rub surfaces till they're consumed

The plan was graffed eons ago

Steps though short, taken firmly

One high-pitched squeal followed another

Neither animal nor folk rested calmly

Being laid and built on concrete floor

Welcome my friend, to The Machine

Man’s work, often a feeble testimony

To devices that he can imagine.

Let the last pour a foundation lay

For men’s dreams to be fulfilled

Metal or alloy, noble or common

Tape after tape till part is filled