"Love is Better than Hate" - By Poppy Cooke

      "Love is Better Than Hate"

       By: Poppy Cooke

Don't judge a book by its cover, 

love is better than hate. 

Life's too short to waste opportunities 
you have the chance to take.

One day you could be alive and the next you could be dead,
so keep your head held high with a big smile on your face!

       Analysis:

       This short poem sends a very familiar message to the ones we hear from famous peacemakers throughout the ages: Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King, and countless others.
       But Poppy Cooke decided to summarize the whole idea and concept of love into three stanzas. 
       The first: "Don't judge a book by its cover, love is better than hate." These two lines capture the essence of decades of racial profiling, sexism, religious wars, and many more conflicts caused by the assumption that the enemy is a monster, just because we have been told so, or just because one person of that race has demonstrated the characteristics of a monster. So don't judge a book by its cover, Poppy Cooke says, read a few chapters before you shoot or stab it.
       The second stanza: "Life's too short to waste opportunities you have the chance to take." These next lines talk about how little great chances(opportunities) come along in life, and how scarcely they are seized. Some people live their entire lives waiting for that golden opportunity that will never come. Cooke encourages you not to be one of those people, but instead to seize the day and take risks when it is due.
       And finally: "One day you could be alive and the next you could be dead,
so keep your head held high with a big smile on your face!" These last two lines encompass the whole poem in my opinion. Capture the moment, seize the day, whatever you want to do in your life, go ahead and do it. And remember to always keep smiling no matter what it is.