There is a word no longer heard,

No longer in the human mind;

As life moves its epistemes,

Words get left behind.

 

There is comfort, there is fun,

Skill, show, applause;

But lack of meat at the heart of these,

Like the thinnest gauze.

 

The next distraction ever at hand,

No feeling has the heft to sink

Into the cauldron of being,

Now slave to vanishings.

 

As people disappear from life,

Replaced by digital wonders,

There is no depth in transgressions,

Only fanciful blunders.

 

Success forbids our immersion

Into rich human alloy;

Thus the word lost to us

Is what Wordsworth called “joy.”

 

Our joys are no longer “joy”

But niceties to a passing ear;

“joy” demands a heart that throbs

To an overflowing tear.

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