Random Ransom Of Living Poem by Patti Masterman

You should thank your lucky stars for Death and his minions;
Pestilence, Famine, Catastrophe..
He keeps the world pristine, he kills early
The weak and delicate,
So that the entire world is not formed
Out of wheelchair parts
And bedpan furniture;
So the suffering is not endless and without remedy.

And neither fear a heaven, where these bodies never perish,
If such a thing were possible, it would have been tried already
Because down here, wherever flesh lives,
So do Time and Attrition, eroding cells by the hour,
And the backside of every living creature
Seen in the mirror, is degradation;
It is the price of living, and when was living ever without cost?

There are chameleons, and insects that glow with their own
Rare light from within, and any number of strange and wonderful
Creatures; and everything you own or don't own down here comes with
A cost, which we must all of us pay each second, the wages of bounty,
And the mortgage price, and the random ransom of every living thing,
For every day that breathing continues:
And it's only because there's Death, that we will always pay it gladly.