No Man Is An Island

For some,
financial stability
and spiritual autonomy
enable a solitary life,
a living single,
a “light on the feet”
free to climb stamina.

Living alone
provides
restoration, privacy,
solitude and space
but also hunger for contact,
and anxiety about crisis survival.

It cultivates the
cult of individual rules,
a sparsity of shared responsibility and
civic leadership.

Beware!
Digital communications are
ranty, dishonest and weird.
Real world interactions
force us
to deal with a diversity
not found virtually.

The virtual community
lives in
“the half light”.

Texting
doesn’t replace phone;
e-mail distracts from the face-to-face.

We need
to summon ourselves
by ourselves.

Trained by the Net,
solitude eludes us.
Without training,
we cannot manage the
complex forms of engagement,
and easily withdraw.

Without fierce autonomy,
we cannot heal our wounds.
Confessing on line
doesn’t work.
Healing needs a touch,
an organic space,
time to grow,
root,
blossom.

More than a whoosh
a beep
a ping!

A seed in the dark earth,
rain and sun,
dewdrops on seedlings,
new growth:
EARTHLINGS!!!!!!

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Poland