Talking to the Machine by Rose Kelleher

They were closer to the machine back then,
the old programmers.

You hear them grumbling over sandwiches,
brushing crumbs from diagrams
drawn up by callow system architects
whose goal, it seems, is infinite abstraction:
a box for man, a box for the machine,
an endless chain of boxes in between.

How they used to love their work! Long hours
in solitary, silent contemplation,
writing in a language that few knew;
sometimes tested by a bug, tormented
almost to madness, giving up, and then
behold! the burning bush of inspiration.

Things are different now,
with programs writing programs, APIs
to APIs; nobody pokes core
directly anymore. Sometimes in secret,
at work, or even after they retire,

they practice, like ascetics on retreat
who forage for wild blueberries and grubs
and rub two sticks together to make fire.

http://www.ramblingrose.com/poetry/