Shuttered

Do the freedom and "connectivity" of electronic communication have a dark side? Although the Internet revolution has done much to connect our minds across vast distances, it has done much to help dig deeper the abyssal separating us, soul from soul. The advertisements say to "reach out and touch someone." Maybe they're right, in a way -- it is possible to touch someone in a spiritual sense -- but not in the immediate, personal, frighteningly physical contact so much a part of what connects us to our lives and our reality.

Maybe it's the lack of this contact, this sharing of physical space, which cuts off so many of us from our humanity. Maybe it's the lack of presence that allows some of us to dispassionately harm those we cannot know as fellow travelers and companions on life's journey. Perhaps, it is the doom and bane of prophets, pariahs, and poets to always remain apart from the vision viewed distant and hazy through the veil. Perhaps what frees the spirit imprisons the soul.

Mick

Shuttered

A prophet sitting in darkness arrayed,
A denizen bathed in silence and gloom,
I foresee a bright future, but afraid
Of life, I cannot leave the shuttered room.
I've lived long alone in quiet despair,
Fear my companion, both frigid and fierce;
A knife in my heart with each look out there,
Dying a little with each poignant pierce.
I see you distant - a welcoming sight,
Shining like silver in deepest shadow,
A light blazing bright in the velvet night,
And painful, as only shuttered souls know.
I understand that you might give a damn,
But I cannot let you see who I am.

Mick McKellar
November 2007