Solitude

Everything seems quiet
No traffic whine
No crowd drone
No planes overhead
Or is it?
Not as much quiet, as solitude
The noise of man means nothing
Here to there and there to here
Nothing, really
The noise of nature contradicts us
Here to there is survival
Migration, gathering, hunting, fleeing
There to here
Returning, mating, nesting, raising
Man's bustle does not compare
As much as we are part
We are separate
Except in solitude
Here we are many connected as one
We have but to listen to hear the meaning
We have but to watch to see the message
We have but to feel to understand the purpose
We are not as transient as led to believe
The connection is tenuous but it still exists
In solitude we find the key
For in our noise we are many
For in our noise we are connected as one
There is no lock
No need for a key
Listen, watch, feel
In our world solitude need not be sought after
It need not be bought
Solitude is found within
Anytime of our choosing


Where I live have a place on the property where I cannot hear the road that is 2kms away, when the wind is right. At those times I have found some of the solitude that I needed to survive.... maybe survive is too strong a word, cope may be better. Anyone can survive but they are not always alive. When I wrote this one I was just standing around in the "quiet zone" and listening to the nature sounds and determining what they might be...as compared to man's noise (I can hardly call what we make sounds... it's more often noise).


Later, about a week, I picked up a book in a Chapters store entitled "Solitude". It was a journal (edited) of a fellow's experience spending one year by himself on an island in Patagonia. The only contact he had was email once a month. I read fast so I scanned some of the parts of the book randomly. I read the "punch line" where he finds that the solitude he sought, and got, was not all that it is cracked up to be...I figured he should know. I plan on buying the book but I had used up my book allowance for the visit already (I gave mine to Kathy as she wanted a more expensive book). He has been searching for his solitude since 1970. I figure if this fellow has taken this long and gone to great lengths to find his solitude and he still has not really found it...then perhaps he has been looking in the wrong places.

Long and short is that true solitude has nothing to do with nature and more to do with how we perceive our surroundings at any given time. I am sure that some can find their solitude in the busiest situations without a hint of what most of us might call nature. I did not realize this until reading my poem just now.

Solitude is a state of being. It is found when you know where to look. Nature is a tool, only a means to an end that we use to help us find that inner self, our center.... the point from which all else is referenced.

Solitude = Solitary Attitude.

Jeff.