Josh Terpening - Passers-by

How
Greetings go the response to strangers
In the street,
With such a superficial exchange of words
Every time they meet.
A paradoxical and peculiar thing it seems to me,
That they announce their lives to these replies
So optimistically…
For after they part ways, even before they turn around,
Gloomily the mind strays and their hearts are on the ground.

Josh Terpening

http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/passers-by-6/