Vicarious

poem about us, we, I, and you.

I am vicarious through your journals;
living and teaching in France
sleeping in the Sonoran Desert.

Looking back, my youth wasted.
I know that you too will look back 
on your own wasted years and wonder what could have been done
to safe guard what becomes lost to us all.

Never minding that it is as it should be and
it couldn’t be like it is
if it wasn’t like it has been.
And anyway really you are me and I am you

vicarious.

Our helpless human condition tells us that it should be better.