Paradise Is Only A Word

Now must be what they said was paradise,
long before words of love were known–
you and I alone, yet not alone,
our language only of touch and eyes.

Is this what those alone and lonely seek
on crowded streets, from likenesses
unlike themselves? Their silences
screaming: Speak! Speak to me! Speak!

Look at me! You look through limpid glass
at mirror less images unlike yourself,
a human book unread upon your shelf.
Never to speak to, never see, but pass

among lifeless shadows, none with a name,
barring shape and color, all the same,
seeking not alms, asking not much–
words in a common tongue, a human touch.

.....merrypens.....