So I Choose Joy

So I Choose Joy
© Surazeus
2019 02 19

I sit on wood bench outside the stone bank
and watch people walk to their offices,
nameless souls of atomic flame in flesh,
whose minds glow with as much passionate hope
as mine to savor pleasures of this life
in struggle to earn success before death
dissolves our bodies back to molecules.

I wish I could meet every human being
and live a whole rich lifetime just with them,
exploring mysteries of our universe
so we could savor pleasures of friendship
before death erases us both from Earth.

I see their faces like grapes on long vine
of ancestral bloodlines in family trees
all sprouting from one original root
as we migrated all around the globe.

Who is that common mother we all share,
sitting on dirt mound under the fruit tree
and teaching us to sing in tune with rivers?

Though we are all fragments of one first soul,
we compete through endless contest for power
to become the new source of future souls
by eliminating rivals for fame
while wearing mask of friendship and respect
to outwit everyone in game of life
till death laughs at us from abyss of time.

I release tense desire to conquer time
and savor pleasures of just being alive
because I may die now without offspring
or my descendants will conquer the world,
but either way I will be dead tomorrow
so I choose joy over ambitious sorrow.

Jumping up from the wood bench by the bank,
I twirl around and improvise new song
mocking aggressive lust to rule the world
while people clap and throw me dollar bills.