January 2021
Barbara Crooker
bcrooker@ptd.net
Author's Note: This is another poem that appeared in one of my books (Some Glad Morning, Pitt Poetry Series, 2019) that never appeared in a journal. Now Verse-Virtual will get credit for that. I think it’s still culturally appropriate, although all of these various means of communication have kept us in touch during the pandemic.

Sonnet From the Psalms:
Psalm 4, verse 1
 
Answer me when I call to you, even though
I know, Lord, you don’t have cell service. Connectivity,
the problem of our time. Everyone’s got much to say, seems to me,
but nobody’s listening: Facebook, You Tube,
Instagram, Twitter. The Net is alive with the sound of pixels,
yammering, yammering. Where is Walter Winchell
when you need him, somebody discerning?
How can we separate need from yearning?
How many likes, hearts, thumbs ups are enough
to fill the yawning caverns, how much stuff
to make us feel that we’re a part of something larger?
Or maybe not? Maybe we should make a second start,
a do-over, a let serve, put the phone back in its charger?
©2021 Barbara Crooker
Editor's Note: If this poem(s) moves you please consider writing to the author (email address above) to tell her or him. You might say what it is about the poem that moves you. Writing to the author is what builds the community at Verse Virtual. It is very important. -JL