Troubles

What troubles us
who have too much?
For those with nothing
only dream of having
more—a little or a lot.
But what do we dream of,
whose lives are the stuff
of others’ dreams?
Behind our kids and schools,
our friends and marriages,
after work, after full meals,
in every thread & fabric
of our interknit community
we whisper in the dark
of an unknown malaise.
Why aren’t we happier?
You knew us well, Viktor,
to see our need for meaning—
and what is that, but love
for one another? Love
(without which we are a
clanging Nothing)—but
like everything else,
we have too much.
So then we dream,
subconscious & opposite:
of having less.

January 2020