Seclusion

Fragile poem of humans being

Jogs me from my bed,

Drowsy, hoarded loneliness

And existential dread.

Ironic that we prize so much

Our efforts to connect,

When shadows of a sidelong view

Are all we can expect.

We cannot know, nor even breach,

The truth of any soul,

Yet wrap our time round headlong race

To know and to be known.

I laugh to think our common bond

Is forged of solitude,

The thing we hold in common cause

Our common cause precludes.

Yet there is so much beauty here,

When, tearfully, we see,

Seclusion is one thing I know

Of you, and you of me.