Alone

 

It takes some time to know, not simply believe, that we are alone.

Our lives are nestled among others who are close then far away,

notes are sent from distant places, telling of fantasies and tragedies,

keeping close as they can to what was once warm nearness,

but has faded into words as from across an ocean of time and space.

It takes some time to see how far those faces have receded

into a cave in a mountain, among forests beyond a sea,

to know that all that mingles in our moments is the air we breathe,

and perhaps the dreams we have of past events, both golden and sad.

And in that moment in which we finally discover our space of silent singularity,

we may have peace or find a dreaded darkness, cold and devouring,

cold and silent; cold and fierce; cold and deadly; cold and lonely.

 

We do not find this alley of subjugation to dread when young,

since youth knows no barriers since they are defeated by tomorrows cleansing,

or the broken truths brought on by the hammers of defeated plans,

or the midnights of terrible dreamy deaths of the effigies of hope,

or the dismantled architectures of a dedicated life.

Youth, in its blindness sees further than it can, and grasps more than it should,

and therein lies the seeds of what becomes a shroud of defeat

when the hammer falls at last.

 

It takes some time to know that we are alone.

Perhaps sitting in the forest, with a bird song or drifting leaf

reminding us we have companions of temporal ontology

staring us in the face, or the sound of distant laughter,

reminding us that that laughing voice is not our own,

but of another who knows us not, and has no care for our thoughts.

It takes some time; but it will arrive. Perhaps at noon someday

when the light changes and we began walking across the street

and see a face coming onward, like a ghost

who knows us not, and never will.