Solitude & loneliness

Often

The one will hide the other

Both looking, sounding much the same

Solitude is an empty rooftop with me a-perch
Staring into silent skies of starlight
Hearing not a sound but what I breathe
A fortress for the thoughts I will be thinking
Where no one can invade nor bother
The stillness of the night's bright velvet darkness

loneliness is a rock in the desert heat:
No sound, no breeze disturbs its bastions
But the rapid beating heart in need of shade
Cactus grace the landscape far encircling
Withered and dry in desperate need of water
No moisture in the clouds that bring no rain

Often

indistinguishable except

In the eye of the experiencer

Solitude is a country road at twilight

No barn to burn her image in my eyes

Fields newly mown lay open far and near

A gentle breeze brings music on her back

Green and harvest-gold pervade the landscape

All is peaceful, tranquil, still

loneliness is the frozen ice and snowdrifts

Antarctica below-the-world life

Heavy winds drive deep within the skin

Of any who would brave to tarry there

Calling, no response is answered

Without a compass -- all but life is lost

Often

Taking the subtler forms

Of the opposite of our perceptions

Solitude is an oyster tucked deep within his shell

Protection, Peace and sleep are what he finds

His shell, a hard defense against the world

Secluded under his own reticence

Nothing keeping him from those around

Except a shell he opens as he will

loneliness is a goldfish in a small glass bowl

A painted plaster castle is all he sees within

Without his home the world revolves

On pet-shop shelves are others much his kin

Who with him hold no communication

Except the distorted face of passers-by

Often

These two are open for inspection

And changes only if the actor wills

Other times

The choice is not left with those

Whose lives have been leading there:

To one

Or the other

1/1/6

-- Josh