This is in no way a reflection on all of you wonderful people who read this blog, but I’ve been thinking about blogging and writing, about a silence and responses, and what they mean to the people involved, to poets and writers and bloggers and just general human beings on the other side of our computer screens.
Hopefully, this poem will remind us to be the kind of followers and readers we’d like to have.
What does it mean when you won’t say a word?
When the sound of crickets is all.
When my words go out
Into the void
Darkness
And there is no response.
Did you not read it?
Reading it, did you not like it?
Liking it, did you not care?
Or maybe you think I wouldn’t,
Or perhaps,
And here is a sad and optimistic thought
My thoughts were too complete
For you to add anything to them.
Self-sustaining
Independent
Entire and alone?
They say statistics never lie
So I know you’re out there.
For you come from across the countries
But you leave nothing behind.
And I am guilty, too.
For I have likewise visited
Read
And said nothing.
Maybe I was too busy
Self-preoccupied
I had nothing to say.
Or perhaps I thought it wouldn’t matter
If I spoke
And so I remain a number
Not a name.
Just part of the tide that flows across your webpage
A portion of a bar graph
Not a voice.
They say some writers have comments
So thick that a single one
Would not be missed.
And some have followers that join them daily
Yet they too leave only a click.
Only a handful write back
Like the correspondence of a pen-pal.
Irregular.
Sporadic.
But at least there are a few.
Others are welcomed
Only with silence.
Copyright 2014 Andrea Lundgren
Andrea Lundgren 