Absence No Longer Has the Chance to Make Our Hearts  Grow Fonder

When I was young, I wandered far from relative or friend.
They had no idea where I’d been or where my trail would end.
Months between our letters and years between each call,
how I fared from day to day they didn’t know at all.

Although I moved from place to place, each new spot I was in
was the only place I was, the last place where I’d been
was fully left behind me. Only memories bound me there.
As I moved ever on alone, Australia to Zaire.

No cellphone in my pocket, no Facebook there to see
what friends had for breakfast or congratulating me
on my latest hairstyle or showing me their hives
reporting the minutiae of their daily lives.

Back before the internet made contact never-ending.
I could simply concentrate on my present wending.
But this was how I wanted it. I wanted to be lost.
To fully live a new life, my old life was the cost.

Absence no longer makes our hearts grow fonder ever fonder,
for it’s impossible to leave our loved ones when we wander.
We see them every day on Skype, each minute a new text.
They tell us about yesterday, then what they’re doing next.

We are no longer absent from anyone we know
anywhere we wander, anyplace we go.
At any given moment, no matter where we roam,
our past invades our present, bringing us back home.

In this era of devices–– laptop, tablet, phone––
we’re in perpetual company. We never are alone.
The longest that we’re ever safe from texting, tweeting, beeping
is probably the hours when we leave them just for sleeping!

The Prompt:  What’s the most time you’ve ever spent away from your favorite person?  https://dailypost.wordpress.com/prompts/my-favorite/