That’s How Much, By Brianrrs37 (AKA Brian James Rational Poet on FB/META and @Brianrrs37 on Twitter/X)

Ambrosia wasn’t around
When the meteor hit the ground
At the Yucatan dinosaurs burned

What did you feel in the year 79
When Vesuvius blew it’s top
And all those bodies dropped ?

That’s how much you will feel
200 years from now

What did you feel when
The Titanic hit the iceberg
And all those people drowned?

That’s how much you will feel
500 years from now

What did you feel when
Booth pulled his Derringer
On Lincoln in Ford’s Theater?

That’s how much you will feel
1,000 years from now

What did you feel when
Napoleon lost at Waterloo?
Nothing more he could do

That’s how much you will feel
5,000 years from now

What did you feel when
The mastodon went extinct?
Ice age on the brink

That’s how much you will feel
10,000 years from now

What did you feel when
Genghis Khan marauded on
Mongol Empire now gone

That’s how much you will feel
1 million years from now

Oh certainly there will be
Lots of future events
Long after your death

After your last breath
But the feeling that is important
Is now, while you are alive
(end)

“Ambrosia” is a 1970s band that had had a hit song “How Much I Feel”

This poem is pointing out the absurdity of fearing what will happen to you after you die. It will feel the same as before you were born.

I fear prolonged pain and severe pain, but I don’t fear the wrath of a bearded man in the sky or the torture of a man with a pitchfork in the ground.

What is important is what you feel now, but even more important, how you treat others.