Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.
— Arthur C. Clarke
I don’t know how things work.
Take lava lamps for example:
the rise and fall of globules
like red corpuscles squeezed
in a mysterious rhythm.
I’m amazed the lava doesn’t melt
through the glass. The blobs
are real lava, aren’t they?
Take the financial markets:
the rise and fall of shares,
the lifeblood of the global
economy, a systole of cash
and diastole of debt.
I’m amazed the melt-downs never
sink us to the bottoms
of our deep pockets.
The wizards pull their levers,
the magicians cast their spells
and assure us they understand
what we don’t: the rise and fall
is as natural as breathing
and will go on forever,
like a heart with a pacemaker.
Lava Lamp in the Dark, by Aaron Kuhn, subject to a CC Attribution-Share Alike 2.5 License, available from Wikimedia Commons