Windows

Windows

We were scattered over continents,
With oceans in between.
And those, with whom we'd bonded, were
For long, unheard, unseen.

But now there is the Internet
And mobile phones and more,
And so we're back in contact with
The ones we'd lost before.

But some are gone, and newer ones—
The ones we'd never known—
Now show themselves—in image, text—
On screens we each might own.

We did have phones for quite a while,
At least in urban places.
But calls were few and far between,
Across the global spaces.

But speech can now be cheaply heard,
And the voices from the past—
That still survive—have cadence slow,
In a world that changes fast.

We marvel at these miracles
That seem like science-fictions
And wonder at the spouses, kids
And the old, familiar dictions.

The ones who once were youngsters now
Have grandkids and have wrinkles.
We see on screens these wonders and
We feel we’re Rip Van Winkles.

******

And yet, although we now can peer
Through windows, space divides us.
So most of us can still not reach
And touch the ones not near us.

So when a father has a stroke
Or when a mother cries,
We dare not ask for leaves from jobs,
Unless we trade in lies.

And when a parent perishes
And the other takes to bed,
We're lucky to get half a week
To seem to serve the dead.

******

Some travel every month across
The continents and oceans
On business trips—and also fly
To faraway vacations.

And some enjoy this flying high
But others quickly tire
And wish there was a quiet place
To which they could retire

For leaving those we love behind
To deal with their travails
Is hardly good for good for peace of mind
Or fit when someone ails.

Yet others save for decades for
A trip across the borders,
And most of us will rarely go
Beyond a boss’s orders.

We fly across the world or cross
A desert in the darkness,
But spend what then is left of life
In a job that acts as harness.

We travel to and from our work
In a captive state of mind
And use our phones as windows to
The worlds we’ve left behind.

And some can buy a ticket and
Then fly across the sky—
But most are bound to where they are,
Until they too can die.

2018, September 22nd, Sun.
(verses added Sep. 25th, Tue.)
Brooklyn, New York