Solitude

Today's poem was written at a time when I was setting a particular kind of challenge for myself with my writing: Take a randomly-selected word and define it, not in dictionary terms, but in personal, human terms ... terms that readers would understand for having lived or witnessed some of them.

It helped that I had some experiences to call on ... the relative isolation of a rural upbringing ... military service ... being "alone" on a crowded subway in New York City.

It helps, too, to be able to block out present surroundings, for at least those few minutes of the writing exercise ... all of those things of the moment which are the opposite, in this instance, of the word you're trying to define: friends, family, companions, even the voices coming from the TV in the other room ...

The poem, originally published in Shawnee Silhouette:

SOLITUDE

It's not just

the hollow, echoing

sound of nights;

days can be

lonely, too,

with a consuming

emptiness spreading,

crinkling as it burns

the thin paper of time

on which we scratch

the names of our thoughts.

With no one to touch,

no one to hear,

no one to care

that we exist,

there is no breaching

the walls of that cell

in which we are locked,

listening as the minutes

slide into hours,

pyramiding themselves

into coldness,

the absolute zero

of solitude.

© 1996

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Today's word: emptiness