Newsaholic

We had been over two months at sea
And had not seen or heard
Anything from the rest of the world.
We had not encountered
A single ship at sea
Other than the wrecks
At Palmyra Island.
Obviously we were not traveling
Along the major shipping lanes.
We had not even seen
A single plane pass overhead,
And were beginning to realize
How incredibly immense
The Pacific Ocean is.
For all we knew
The rest of the world
Could have gone to war
Or simply vanished,
And we wouldn’t have known.
For someone who read
Two or three newspapers
Every single day
For years and years,
I was utterly amazed
How well I could get along
Without the slightest idea
Of what was going on
Anywhere else in the world.
As it turned out,
The rest of the world
Got along just great without me.
Sure, there were plenty
Of tragedies and travesties,
Just like always,
But I didn’t miss anything
By failing to keep up with them.