Laura Jayne at Pictures, Poetry & Prose poses a daily writing challenge.This one is in response to the prompt "What makes us the same?".
I've drifted a bit off course and am a bit late but..
Humanity
The news tells us of a death
Of someone we never knew.
Cold, clinical, matter of fact;
Reported and over in a moment or two.
But that person, quickly dismissed,
Will have had a mother and father,
Maybe a sister or perhaps a brother
Friends, neighours, a significant other.
Colleagues, storekeepers and so on
All increase the living sphere
Of people who knew this news item
In a way that’s deeply, painfully, dear.
We’re all statistics and yet we’re not;
We’re people, we’re family, we’re all together;
We’re beings that laugh and cry and bleed;
We’re more than a news item before the weather.
---
© J Cosmo Newbery
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I've drifted a bit off course and am a bit late but..
Humanity
The news tells us of a death
Of someone we never knew.
Cold, clinical, matter of fact;
Reported and over in a moment or two.
But that person, quickly dismissed,
Will have had a mother and father,
Maybe a sister or perhaps a brother
Friends, neighours, a significant other.
Colleagues, storekeepers and so on
All increase the living sphere
Of people who knew this news item
In a way that’s deeply, painfully, dear.
We’re all statistics and yet we’re not;
We’re people, we’re family, we’re all together;
We’re beings that laugh and cry and bleed;
We’re more than a news item before the weather.
---
© J Cosmo Newbery
---
Yes, I think about that every time the news reports a dead soldier - they are not the only casualties of war.
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