A Natural View (Andre’s Suggested Revision)

  
Awake each day with hope and joy,
Our precious time cannot waste,
Thankful the world’s in our employ,
As with delight its mysteries taste.

Enthralled, its beauty we embrace,
Strive each turn of happenstance,
Challenges, with calmness face,
Ethics, knowledge to advance.

We’re not gods — goofy thought —
Finding our way in the world as man,
But seek wisdom, as humans ought,
Accepting what fate dealt our hand.

We’re naturalists in every respect,
Study life, nature as the mother,
But add to the label, a new aspect:
We eschew all supernatural “other,”

Except as entertainment foray,
Extruding creative work to amuse.
Diversion is requisite mainstay,
Boundless mental energy to use.

Anchor our mind in logic and reason,
Won’t bend knee in word or deed,
Never against it commit treason,
By accepting a dogmatic creed.

Spend no time in sermon’s grip,
Enjoy our allotted time on earth,
Hollow is promise of heavenly trip,
Care not a whit for eternity berth.

Yet, a joy as through life we go,
With beliefs, that across spectrum fly,
Are dear friends we’ve come to know,
From hard skeptics to “never ask why.”

Tell them what we think, perhaps in verse,
Hoping they’ll enjoy earthly stay,
And accept each, for better or worse,
  As they revel in life — charted their way.