Now, there’s no one in the picture -
no one but her.
No Jack or Jackie, no John -
In the blink of the Earth’s all-seeing eye,
they were gone.
And I thought:
Who will be next to disappear
from MY life’s photograph,
to become a bit of stardust
in the sky,
here today and gone tomorrow?
And it makes me question
Why?
What is the “Why” of all of this?
Why worry about the sadness
and the sorrow -
why worry about getting ahead -
or whether, in the morning rush,
you forgot to make the bed?

None of it matters, in the
long run -
not in the timetable of the moon,
or the fleeting seconds of the sun.
Nothing matters but that you
tried to ease another’s pain -
that you sheltered someone
from the rain
that you were kind to the loved ones
and the furred and feathered ones
in your life -
that, somehow, you rose above
the common strife
above yourself, to do some good.
It matters that you understood,
that you wrote a poem or a song -
that you tried to gentle someone’s fear;
for in the doing
you will leave the
essence of yourself behind....
to show that you were caring
and that it mattered
that you were here.

©Christina Sharik
January 24, 2001