Sacred Heart #20

On a dirt road lies a dead beetle.
Three little pairs of legs carefully folded on his belly.
Instead of death’s chaos – neatness and order.
The horror of this sign is mitigated,
the range strictly local, from witchgrass to spearmint.
Sadness is not contagious.
The sky is blue.

For our peace of mind, their death seemingly shallower,
animals do not pass away, but simply die,
losing – we wish to believe – less of awareness and the world,
leaving –  it seems to us – a stage less tragic.
Their humble little souls do not haunt our dreams,
they keep their distance,
know their place.

So here lies the dead beetle on the road,
glistens unlamented when the sun hits.
A glance at him is a good as a thought:
he looks as though nothing important had befallen him.
What’s important is valid supposedly for us.
For just our life, for just our death,
a death that enjoys an extorted primacy.

Wislawa Szymborska (1923- 2012) was a Polish poet, essayist, translator and the recipient of the 1996 Nobel Prize in Literature.

This poem speaks to mankind’s belief in its supremacy in the great web of life. Because we believe ourselves as more aware, more highly evolved than anything else in this world, our death is treated as a tragic event. 

We do not extend that same consideration to lowly insects, animals and, I will add, plants. Their life and death are seen as meaningless and unimportant; they are not worthy of tragedy. How presumptuous to believe that they have no fervent love of life as we do. How can we know what passes through their consciousness in the final moment.