Isolated Within Our Shell

Many - nay, most of us
in this modern society
enclose ourselves within
a hard protective shell,
where in splendid isolation
we can gain control of our world.
Look and you will see it
all the time around you -
people, each in their individual shell,
passing by others in theirs. For inside
we can keep the hostile world at bay.
We can travel the path of life at
our chosen speed, letting others
surpass us in their rush to glory,
as we pass those plodding along in no hurry.
The coldness, or the intolerable heat,
we encounter in the world outside our shell
we can render bearable within.
Here it is we who get to select
the beat of our life’s music.
Within we are lord and master!
No wonder we so jealously guard
our hard shell, desiring to maintain
inviolate this our personal space,
blaring and gesturing at any who dare
try to dent our carefully nurtured shell.
This is to what modern Man has been driven.
Now arriving at my driveway, I depart
MY hard shell - a Nissan Pathfinder SUV -
to rejoin the world outside.



Harry Edward Gilleland      06.21.02