A recent trip to the emergency room <br />set me back fifteen hundred dollars <br />and then some. <br />How I bitched and moaned about <br />the extraction from my wallet, <br />not to mention the pain in my leg, <br />and the inconvenience of having <br />to stay off it, and ice it down. <br /> <br />Today a friend called from Florida <br />in tears. Her Aunt Agnes had a <br />leg amputated above the knee. <br />Agnes lives in a nursing home. <br />An uncared for bed sore on her heel, <br />turned into gangrene. <br />Agnes' screams disrupted <br />the normal routine of the hospital. <br />The stench made my sweet friend <br />leave the room to vomit. <br />Shame on me for complaining! <br />I'll run a mile at twilight as penance. <br /> <br />Across the world a few days ago, <br />a white-haired retired Army Sergeant <br />returned to Vietman to find the remains <br />of a bunker he inhabited back in <br />the mid-1960's when he fought <br />an unpopular war. <br />His eyes welled up with tears <br />as he held the acrid soil in his hand <br />remembering how the blood of his men <br />stained it to the color of rust. <br /> <br />Now he has learned the soil will soon <br />be flavored by the sweet run-off from <br />a pineapple cannery being built there. <br />The soldier's tears evaporated <br />as he ran down an old, abandoned <br />air strip laughing; celebrating his life, <br />and those of his fallen comrades. <br />As he sprinted, he asked God, <br />'Is a man shaped by the land, or <br />the land shaped by the man? ' <br /> <br />Agnes asks God <br />similar questions.<br /><br />Kay Francis<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/putting-life-into-perspective/
