The more we crowd the earth, the more we separate from each other.

Being naive and ever-trusting,
having (like my mother)
taken people at face-value
or judged them by their faces,
it is only now, having read so many
(mostly literary, mostly perceptive)
novels in my 78 years of life
I have come to understand
that, if you are innerly rich,
other people are best avoided

lest you be looted
ruined
or sucked dry.