Respect Poem by Carolyn Brunelle

What do you think heaven is like?
What does it mean to you?
Does it have those streets of gold?
Is there anything to do?

Is there really a pearly gate;
someone with a book,
trying to find your written name
to give you that one final look?

Do you gain appoval or denial
to gain your entrance there?
Does your soul become visible
so every fault is laid bare?

Is heaven for you a paradise
where love and comfort waits?
Will you walk a country road
instead of entering through a gate?

Is it a place of light and color
where all things become clear
or simply a final judgment;
and a life based on that fear?

Maybe heaven doesn’t exist
for some who fail to believe,
but then is heaven something real
because others embrace it with zeal?

If there is a place, in each man’s soul
that helps him get through the day,
who can be God for each man’s need;
be there to guide him on his way?

If God is real and hears my prayers,
then I know he’ll understand,
I’d rather follow my own inner compass
than put my faith in the things of man.

There are many versions of God;
visions of heaven, a variety,
like grains of sand in the sea,
so I will respect who you are in life
if you also have respect for me.