Serious reflections

Pick up any newspaper or cnn.com these weeks and you'll understand these two serious reflections by Mary Oliver. To me they're related.

"The Morning Paper"

Read one newspaper daily
(the morning edition is the best
for by evening you know that you at least
have lived through another day)
and let the disasters, the unbelievable
yet approved decisions,
soak in.

I don't need to name the countries,
ours among them.
What keeps us from falling down, our faces
to the ground; ashamed, ashamed?


"Was it necessary to do it?"

I tell you that ant is very alive!
Look at how he fusses at being stepped on.