Roadkill

Blood filled my mouth as I lay dying on the stone
Just another face, another body, unknown, unloved, unseen
You killed me and left me, because you didn't care
I will die soon. You do not feel my pain.
Did you feel a flash of guilt as you left me for dead?
Do you wish I was alive? Or hope that I'm dead?
I hoped to skip in the sunny field tomorrow.
My body is broken. It will never work again.
Already I feel the end draw near.
Your friends pass me by - I trouble them for but a moment.
Then they go on.
They do not know me. They feel no empathy.
They do not know what it is to die on the road.
If I deserve this, what was my crime?
Could it have hurt you so badly? Do you hate me so much?
My life was the work of a lifetime, a labour of love.
My death was wrought in an instant. You never cared.
When your turn comes, will you remember me?
Will you finally understand?
When God judges you for what you did, will you agree? Repent?
Or will you pass me off as a little thing?
And count Him unjust?
God will not forget me, though everyone else does.
He is the God of the little creatures as well as the great.
My heart is spent. I will die here.
Hoping, believing that someday soon I will skip in sunny fields
Of His making.
While you forget me.
(Dedicated to Mark Hindle, who taught me that while we are indeed worth more to God than many sparrows, even the smallest bird is not beyond His care.)