“And still they tick’d, and still they grew,
Though none could tell what they would do.”
In towers tall of glass and glare,
Where numbers hum through filtered air,
There reigns a brood both pale and sly—
Who measure stars, but never sky.
They tick their boxes, humbly proud,
Each whisper lost within the crowd;
And from their screens, like oracles dim,
They conjure worth from metrics grim.
The craftsman’s hand, the thinker’s art,
Are costed, logged, and torn apart;
The plumber scorned, the teacher scolded—
While spreadsheets bloom, in columns folded.
And still they rise, the clerks of mist,
Each data-cell a catechist;
Their creed: “To measure is to know—
Though knowing, none may profit so.”
The call-man’s toil, the worker’s hour,
Are priced and filed by unseen power;
Yet none shall mark, nor dare to name,
The counter who records the same.
They grow, these watchers of the deed,
Like ivy on a dying seed;
And what was once alive with use,
Now feeds the bureaucratic muse.
O Muse! Thou ghost of reason cold,
Whose gospel counts what hearts once told—
Thy priests are legioned, solemn, sure,
Their gospel neat, their faith obscure.
Each morning brings a chart, a graph,
To trace the firm’s declining laugh;
And still they smile, with earnest cheer—
“The numbers rise! All’s well this year!”
But lo! the city groans beneath,
A London choked by rent and wreath;
Where youth must sell both time and soul,
To reach an office, not a goal.
And still the lords of HR say,
“Tick twice before thou end the day!”
For rules must swell, and forms must flow,
That none may reap the seeds they sow.
Then spake the sage with glinting eye,
“The cure lies not in how, but why.”
Let labor breathe, let mind explore,
The worth uncounted, evermore.
For work’s not found in measured parts,
But in the grand design of hearts—
And if thou’dst save thy soul from loss,
Cast down thy box, and break thy cross.
Moral:
To optimize the part is vain,
The whole must sing, or none shall gain.The Mariner’s curse is ours to bear—
We count the wind, but not the air.
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