Absence

Sept 23 2017

We celebrate much,

the coming of age

the coming together

the coming of luck.

At the festive table

in congregation

one-on-one.

But in the coming apart, the coming undone

we are mostly on our own.

In disillusioned love.

In disenchantment, rumination, self-doubt.

In grumbling discontent

and the slow accumulation of loss.

The absence of things

when we're alone with our thoughts.

Like the sliver of moon

in silver light,

its darkened disc

the mind's eye completes.

How odd

that in solitude

we find ourselves most present.

One, among the billions, in this hyper-connected world

where seclusion is hard,

and the dimming of light

the muting of sound

the wanting of touch

both shelter us

and cut us off.

To be alone, but not lonely

comes less naturally

to a social animal

than a solitary creature.

The hunted, in faceless herds.

Flocks of birds, darting

in telepathic flight.

Vast schools of fish

flashing as one.

And the predator, running down its prey.

Or the ambush hunter's

exquisite stillness,

eyes glowing, muscles sprung;

crouching in scrub

under cover of dark.

Knowing

that more often than not

the hunter goes hungry

while the hunted lives on.

I set out to write a poem on the theme of “absence”. As in old age, and its succession of loss, we think of absence as a lack, a burden, a cost. Or as in isolation, the absence of community.

But absence also brings to mind solitude and quiet, the kind of peace that is not only hard in this culture of constant stimulation and connection, but one we seem scared of. How often do we turn up the music, instead of risk being alone with our thoughts? There is the difference between being alone and feeling lonely. There is the competing instinct between our innate social nature, and our sense of self; between extroversion, and the interior life.

I think the most interesting line might be the wanting of touch. I like the way wanting pulls in two directions: the simple lack, coupled with desire. I like the leap from the physical act of being cloistered in silence and darkness – in the two preceding lines – to the more visceral sensation of touch.

Wolves hunt in packs and lions in prides, held together by bonds of kinship and territorial drive. But I think most predators are solitary animals. And while we think of predators as apex creatures, it's instructive to know that most hunts end in failure, despite the hunter's superior strength and speed and lethality. It's their weaker prey who prevail, by virtue of the protection of numbers and the greater good. ...An argument in favour of being more social, from a congenital loner!