Voices, loud and boisterous,

Hurried footsteps echo around me,

People stop to greet me without really seeing me

Offering

Words of wisdom from a fool's lips,

Compliments from a jealous heart,

"Sincere apologies" from an unrepentant hypocrite,

And I sit alone

Wondering.

Solitude surrounds me, silence,

No human company but my own

Except

The hoarse operetta of a lonely frog

The happy gurgle of a quiet brook

The soliloquy of a philosophical nightingale

And I revel in this new- found

Companionship.

 

What is this world we live in?

Where we can be choked by the crowds,

But still feel alone;

Where we can be swallowed up by the night

But still feel naked and exposed;

Where we enslave ourselves to money

And abandon ourselves to Fate

And give ourselves up to our work

And sell our souls for one moment

Of fulfillment

One eternal moment in ephemeral time.

 

Will I find sanctuary again?

Will my soul find peace?

Or will I be swept away,

Merely one face among millions

Who have passed;

Unidentifiable, innumerable,

Stored away in the forgotten,

Cobweb-festooned attics

Of a person's memory?