obligation

the obligation is always compassion.
years and many things else have taught
scales and angles change
relative to the perceiving eye.
what matters little to one, matters
a world to another.  who is really to know

the lesser or more than of things:
we need to believe someone must
if only to keep the collective world
aright.  or is it
only our too often unarticulated need 
for the sense of anchoring ground?