Is It Right To Be Grateful For Still Being Alive Poem by Shalom Freedman

IS IT RIGHT TO BE GRATEFUL FOR STILL BEING ALIVE?

Is it right to be grateful for still being alive
When so many of one’s contemporaries are not?
Isn’t it survival into very old age
A kind of hollow victory?

Even one’s gratitude to God
Seems compromised by these deaths of friends-

Shouldn’t one protest and be angry at God
No matter how grateful one is?

I have survived
But so many others I know have not
Is it all worth it?