After I died I was given three lives
Now must choose one:
A forest ranger I roam the Rockies
Cast my hand inside the moon’s shadow
Waters silver and cool
Drinking them like sipping life
My life as confectioner sweetens dawns
Imagining tortes provokes trances
Swirling milk like Alpine glaciers
Tastes so deep they subdue pain
For the third I design rocket cars
Set to soar on Earth and Mars
Faster than thoughts and quicker than my hopes
But can I make them race through water?
Now I must choose only one
Reminding me of the life I led
Sixteen hours work each day without sun
Fabricating coal tar into food bars
Joints slapping, skin stacked with sores
The short cots always cold
I was told
Work all my life and you will reach heaven
But even in heaven some are more equal
Their choices far greater than three
I do not love this virtual life
The living world still screams
Into my over-designed dreams
I’d rather become a watching shadow
Trying to aid the fully alive
But will they let me ease their lives?
Perhaps the gods survive on the toil of the living
I must ask – why keep heaven if you won’t help hell?