Mostly I am alone
Though surrounded by people,
engaged, enraged, enveloped by
fellow travelers on bustling boulevards
and byways in a compact country —
mostly I am alone with thoughts, dreams.
I might share something. But, nobody’s listening.
Perhaps sharing is too invasive, embarrassing for both of us.
Better to withdraw within the confines of my mind.
Conversation is a daily diet, but utilitarian
monologue not dialogue. We are a Facebook page.
In today’s tuned-out world, asocial
and awkward is all the rage.
Keep it short, superficial; keep it impersonal; don’t toss
pearls to swine. Nothing said is nothing lost. Live
life as an island battered by stormy waves hardly
penetrating the beachfront of my defenses.
—
Brothers
Long ago, one May,
with his lifetime still ahead, he plunged
from a cliff — lithe Icarus falling from the sky —
my younger brother’s accident just
a year after he’d wed.
And now, well before
his prime, without a proper
farewell, my older brother slipped away,
victim of a vicious disease — without
prejudice, color-blind,
merciless. Neither better
nor worse than they, I remain
to bear our family’s name alone.
Vast differences in time, space
and lifestyle separated us
long before this recent loss.
How do you part with someone
who let go of you some time ago?
I am comforted by the place
I chose as home,
the people in my life
embracing me today as I bow
under the heavy weight of mourning.
The post Bob Findysz | Mostly I am alone…and Brothers appeared first on The MOON magazine.