Function

That clicking sound is it thinking
Tickety-tickety-tick
Tock-tick
Tock-tockety-tick-tick
What is the day?
What is the time?
What is the weather?
What is the response?

The straining and the screeching
Ca-rrrrrang-thunk-shunk
Greeeeeechk-tang, Greeeeeechk-tang
That's it deciding
That's it waking
Rising

It's best not to address it
While it cleans, clears and carries
Whatever we won't
It's audio forks initiate patterns
To sort whether vibrations
Are consistent with lingual instructions
Which makes it pauses
Clacking
Waiting
Until it determines
Whether your noise
Is in its list of commands

It considers everything
Flick-tick-tick
Flocketa-tocketa
Since that was the only way
Not to have to bother with them
To be able to forget them
Along with the waste
That they vanish from our memories

It makes them look stupid sometimes
Staring at every unexpected thing
While it's little metal indexes flip
In search of a matching scenario
A stray dog
A fallen tree branch
Incautious children

Sometimes the distraction
Leaves their rounds incomplete
Until late in the night
Returning back from its cycle
And hunkering down
Gung-gung-gung-klank
Vureeeeen-chank
Fortunately the re-winding is quick
So it's ready to wake ontime
And start thinking about the day

On very late nights
After too many interactions with the world
The sound of it finishing its work
Makes the neighborhoods complain
Gathering committees
To meet with the indexers
To discuss if something can't be done
To make them smarter
More efficient
...but mostly less noticeable