A Dead Earthworm

It was too late for the earthworm.  While I am the guy who has stuck many of them on a fishing hook, I felt a moment of sorrow for this one as it laid there.  Somehow it had gotten away from the dirt.  Maybe it crawled out of the dirt and onto the concrete sidewalk early in the morning when the dew was heavy and the hard man made substitute for dirt was cool, but it was almost noon.  The sun was hot.  The concrete was hot.  And the earthworm was stretched out there long past dead.     

Perhaps, I should have paused, picked it up, and gave it a proper burial in the place where it started, but I thought about such a kindness only later when I had gone to another place.  An earthworm is such a small creature, some might even say it is an insignificant thing, but it is also a creation of the Creator and, thus, somehow is connected to each one of us who bears the imprint of the Holy One.  Does this mean that we are the lesser for the loss of the single earthworm?   And are we even the lesser for not thinking it to be so?

Most of us would not be given to such an extravagant conclusion.  Certainly, in the moment of seeing, I had no idea I would carry the image of this drying up dead earthworm stretched out on a sidewalk with me for days.  Maybe it is all just a matter of it wandering too far from the source of its life and a moment of not knowing how to return.  Whether or not it is true, it is certainly a thought worth pondering.