There’s no afterlife nor redemption.
All that would remain is our story.
Forget the holy books,
they vex our judgment.
Our lives, they follow
a finite line toward extinction.
There’s only the here and now.
Heaven or Hell is a choice we make
while we can still feel the wind,
touch the grass, dance in the rain,
and listen to the whisper of loved ones.
Don’t waste time on trivialities,
erecting egos, impressing strangers.
Envy not people with expensive cars,
luxury houses, and a hoard of jewelries.
Nor be obsessed with titles and entitlements.[]
Fame and fortune may corrupt the soul.
If there are people you should envy,
it’s the poets, musicians, artists, philosophers
they who are able to reach
deep into the human heart,
its capacity for goodness and greed,
for beauty and evil.
Avoid the blind crowd.
Never be charmed by the melody
that leads to Hamelin.
Relish the essence of being,
the scent of fields and meadows,
the coldness of the morning dew,
the magic of sunrise and sunset.
Celebrate your triumphs,
cry in your adversity.
Taste both the sweetness of victory
and the bitterness of defeat.
Life is always a cycle
of laughter and tears,
of rising and falling,
and struggling to rise again.
Go chase your dreams in a world
where dreaming is a crime.
Redmoon
18 April 2023
(Redmoon of Bukidnon likes to describe himself as a trying hard poet.)