On The Importance Of An Individual Life

A poem about the importance of an individual life.

Yesterday Death paid a visit to my
neighborhood. He came in the dead of night.
Cancer, a favored minion, on the sly
prepared his way so that Death with ease might

claim another victim without a fight.
I stood this morning before the blighted house
and pondered how it simply doesn’t seem right
that one’s death might be significant to spouse,

family, friends...but is no importance
to the world at large. Such is Mankind’s lot
in life – ‘tho he may proclaim his worth and prance
around in self-importance, his death matters not.

I bent down and plucked a blade of grass.
Did it matter to the lawn? When the lions kill
one gnu from the herd as it thunders past,
does not the herd thrive and prosper still?

As footprints left upon the sandy shore
are soon erased by the tide, an individual
life’s significance is swept away by billions more.
So why is Man’s belief in individual worth perpetual?


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