The usual walk that germinates these pages
A ways ahead a young man shirtless shouting
The repeated word became intelligible slowly
Fuck
Fists clenched he crossed the street
Fuck god damn
A short while later a woman
Shouted presumably his name
And since he was tens of yards ahead
She most likely could not keep pace
With his fury
I old could not sympathize with these troubled youths
Not exactly sympathize
I knew them much less well than those
Near and dear to me
Who never reach perfect understanding
Perfection apparently not a thing
At least not in the phenomenal world
Much less even than myself
Whom I misunderstand so thoroughly
So I did not place myself above them
Though I yearned to mediate
And mediation being by invitation only
Thwarted in my yearning completely irrational anyway
But on the contrary knew just enough to know
What trouble is
Though precluded from this particular trouble
And since I could not feel with them
I felt for them
Pity famously futile
And by reputation demeaning
But the best I could come up with
Under the circumstances