Shall I Be Happy When I Die? Poem by James Walter Orr

Shall I be happy when I die,
Or will I even know?
Shall I protest and wonder why,
Or close my eyes and go?

Shall aches and pains assail my life,
And will I ask relief?
Shall I attempt to leave my strife,
And beg to make it brief?

Shall I reach out and take your hand,
And clasp it to my breast?
Shall I, in time, still take a stand,
And seek my final rest?

Shall I survey the ones I leave,
And kiss their lips, and go?
Shall I, by my absence bereave,
The ones I love and know?

Shall I leave footprints in the sands
Of time, through words I wrought?
Shall my poems weave out the strands,
To carry on each thought?

Shall I walk loveless through my life,
And loveless to the tomb?
Shall coldly play the drum and fife
That brought me from the womb?

Time may have started with my birth,
And end the day I die.
All other things may be my dream:
Who knows the how and why?

If time began the day I dreamt,
And dreams, their courses run
It matters not my life’s unkempt,
The day my life is done.

All knowledge came to light with birth;
With death, it goes away.
A figment of my dream is Earth:
Without me, naught can stay.

Without cognizance, time is gone.
With no time, there’s no space.
Thus happiness cannot be drawn,
With naught to give it grace.

Since there’s no time and there’s no space,
No future and no past,
Could have existed, with no place:
Only can nothing last.

Shall I be happy while I live?
Does happy mean content?
The answer I would have to give,
Is “judge the time I’ve spent.”

Shall I be happy when I die?
The answer one can find,
In whether I did truly try
To better humankind.