insouciance

I read the word twice in one day
in a novel and in the newspaper
of all places
Newspapers are supposed to use
third grade words
Here I am, elderly and still checking
the dictionary, unable to glean
from context what the writer
is trying to say.

And when I say I’m checking
a dictionary, of course, I mean
I’m Googling on my phone,
because who even has a tome
full of words lying around anymore
One can’t get rid of dictionaries
these days…no thrift shops want them
Kick them to the curb in the recycle bin

I imagine towers of dictionaries
and thesauri in landfills
words being dumped
in jumbled piles and burned alive
their insouciant demise displayed
in smoky wisps rising into the air
over the trash heaps
floating skyward carelessly
and breezily only because there
is a literal breeze blowing through

Such talk is anything but insouciant
I am waxing nostalgic
as in nostos, returning home
and algos, pain
cut off from something I have longed for
but never actually known
suffering the loss of
insouciance without
even being sure what it means 

Liz McFadzean