Oh the frustration of size!
To be large and vulnerable,
Or small and weak in other ways?
Whales—our largest creatures—
Are disrespected with harpoons,
Dragged into a world of suffocating air.
Size is no protection.
Even humans—who think themselves so great—
Fall prey to molecules. Viruses are
The top of the food chain,
But do they really live?
Cycling through short, empty lives:
Invade, multiply, die.
At least death comes of their own design.
No swat of hand can squash them,
Spill their souls.
No raptors can spot them in the field,
In the grass, skin, blood—
No one spots them until they’re on the verge
Of swallowing a beast alive.
A tiny speck, a cough, a death.
So is safety in smallness?
Microbes too can be drawn out
Into a toxic world
Of heat, acid, pills.
I wonder, do they struggle like the whale,
Or pass quietly into infinity?
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