Quality Lives

Oftener ‘n not we hear of the strange fable

That human life’s worth is countable

Beyond numbers, naught is calculable

Without figures, nothing’s comprehensible

Churn out the stats and happiness is palpable

You’re worth no more than trinkets cumulable

Numbers tell of wealth, that machines can count

Defining our essence and riches that we mount

So all can be matched with others like ourselves

To give us pride in things all by themselves

The pity of junk defining creators

Reversing logic as things control owners

Creditors will insist as lenders want to quote

Ask for scores, for alone they speak of worth

Yet high scores galore for robbers and warlords

But where is my score for the humanity I bear?

On what gauge is my esteem

And my humanity to redeem?

If all were true, how to measure affection?

What scales shall weigh our reflections?

How can happiness meet such criterion?

When all is unseen, untouched but simply felt

Deep in our souls all numbers shall melt

Leaving just quality, that no whip can welt

If all made sense, what of friendships

Richness, growth, or priceless courtship

Companions and mates relieving hardship

Solitude and grief calmed by fellowship

With what gages to place such realities

To solidify kinship with moral chemistries?

Life’s just too precious for her to quantitate

A quality life’s never short, quantities will only vitiate

Neither is it long, whose measure is plain wrong

An insult to it’s worth, unique and always strong

Let numbers define us at our peril

For souls will vanish leaving us cripples

Give me a silky touch of quality

Keep your infinite measures of misery

My heart shall judge the outcome

As shall the spirit rejoice the wholesome

My smiles shamelessly tell the tale

As quality hugs me, gulping me wholesale

© Alwi Shatry, All Rights Reserved.