Lili Raynaud

machine, learning

By: Lili Raynaud

Year: 2025

have you ever seen a tree? i ask the machine.
i have. it responds. i have seen every picture there is of a tree.

i type back. have you ever seen leaves fluttering outside your window on a fresh june morning?
i am the window. says the machine. i have seen the leaves.

i hover for a moment over the keyboard and its keys.

do you remember?
do you remember the first time you ever saw a tree?

i do. the machine says.
i don’t. i answer.

but i remember the leaves fluttering outside my window on a fresh june morning. and i remember the june before that and the june before that. and i remember feeling like i had come to the end of a very long road and wanting to look back and feeling the branches tug at me saying : look! look! you are no longer a child and you will never be a child again but we are still here.
and they were still there.

outside my window.
and they will be there next june
and maybe even the junes where i won’t get to see them.

do you know how that feels?

i would like to. says the machine.