A Reflective Moment Poem by Jan Oskar Hansen

A Reflective Moment
Now in my late seventies I have left behind me
any vestige of religious feelings, on the contrary
I think religion is bad for humanity.
Death is therefore not an enemy but an end of
conscious life. Then the process of degrading begins
and last till we are earth and the dust that settles
on books that never got read because the TV was
a bigger draw ones taste is decaying.

My lack of beliefs has freed me to sleep and not
worry whether I wake up or not I snooze like a baby
which has stopped crying and should the morning
arrive – I hope it will- and a new day begins, for
when you die the world dies too.