Illusion

A smile crept across my face
As I watched the family of four
Heads bowed and still, I thought with grace
But then I saw the fingers soar

Above 'lectronic devices held tight
With blue-white light reflecting in their eyes
As bits of text and pics were launched to flight
No smiles, no words came from these lives,

Lives so close together, sitting at a table
Food steaming and coffee awaiting cream
Yet no words were spoken from the cradle
Of hands holding tight to 'lectronic streams

Of lives traded for things and words hushed
Into silence lest they lose their place.
But lost they were as they pushed
Into the realm where none need chase

After someone to say, "I was wrong"
Or speak those precious 'love you' words
Words replaced by the gathering throng
Of high scores from playing Angry Birds

They sat so close, yet were so far away
No touch, no laugh was shared among the four
Forever forfeiting this time even for a "Hey,
How are you?", but shut their life's door

The opinions of folks just like them
Who did not talk, did not share the time
As they sat so close and yet not even an Amen
Would cause a lifting of eyes to view the crime

We commit daily as we do not speak
As we walk and do not look others in the eye
Because we have lost the need to touch a cheek
Or set free the smiles that give a natural high.

I watch the family of four as coffee cools
And no words were said, yet busy they are.
Busy from each other, away from the rules
That foster closeness as jam in a jar.

Tears dot my troubled soul
I turn my 'lectronic life' from on to off
And this very day I make my goal
To speak to all, and my hat to doff.

Lest I too, become alone in the crowd,
And drift from my family and claim
I am too busy or I am too cowed
By life to speak to another framed

In the gold molding of loss and hung
So none can see the look of "What do I do"
As they stand on the bottom rung
Of life and try to find purchase with a worn out shoe

And help by a hand from someone who too,
Has turned their busy switch from on to off
And will now reach down and clear the view
And lift up another without regard to time or cost.

Let there be no illusion
Like the family of four
Let there be no confusion
About how life can be so much more.