the dangling conversation...

It's a still life water colour
Of a now late afternoon
As the sun shines through the curtain lace
And shadows wash the room
And we sit and drink our coffee
Couched in our indifference
Like shells upon the shore
You can hear the ocean roar
In the dangling conversation
And the superficial sighs
The borders of our lives

And you read your Emily Dickinson
And I my Robert Frost
And we note our place with bookmarkers
That measure what we've lost
Like a poem poorly written
We are verses out of rhythm
Couplets out of rhyme
In syncopated time
And the dangling conversation
And the superficial sighs
Are the borders of our lives

Yes, we speak of things that matter
With words that must be said
"Can analysis be worthwhile?"
"Is the theater really dead?"
And how the room is softly faded
And I only kiss your shadow
I cannot feel your hand
You're a stranger now unto me
Lost in the dangling conversation
And the superficial sighs
In the borders of our lives.

My favourite Simon and Garfunkel song. Been listening to it over and over again. Every stanza, every line explores the futility. The futility of every effort made to salvage a love gone wrong. The trivial talk of "the theater" and "analysis", just to fill in the empty uncomfortable silences. Of being shells on the shore, indifferent to the storm at sea.

My favourite lines though, are:

And you read your Emily Dickinson

And I my Robert Frost

And we note our place with bookmarkers

That measure what we've lost

....