pyroguysr's Diaryland Diary

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Reincarnation

As some of you may know, I enjoy poetry. I'm no fanatic by any means and I don't dwell on the angst of Langston Hughes nor do I worship the prose of Frost. I simply like what I like. I even write poetry, though I don't often wish to force upon an unsuspecting public the bulk of my work.

One thing I do enjoy is when someone combines philosophy with rhyme and comes up with a wry statement, such as in Phillip Larkin's poem "This Be the Verse" or in the Yeats I've quoted in previous entries.

I recently found this in a book I picked up from the library:

REINCARNATION By Wallace McRae*

�What does reincarnation mean?�
A cowpoke ast his friend.
His pal replied, It happens when
Your life has reached it�s end.
They comb yer hair, and warsh yer neck,
And clean yer fingernails,
And lays you in a padded box
Away from life�s travails.

�The box and you goes in a hole,
That�s been dug into the ground.
Reincarnation starts in when
Yore planted �neath a mound.
Them clods melt down, just like yer box,
And you who is inside.
And then yore just beginnin� on
Yer transformation ride.

�In a while the grass�ll grow
Upon yer rendered mound.
Till some day on yer moldered grave
A lonely flower is found.
And say a hoss should wander by
And graze upon this flower
That once wuz you, but now�s become
Yer vegetative bower.

�The posey that the hoss done ate
Up, with his other feed,
Makes bone, and fat, and muscle
Essential to the steed.
But some is left that he can�t use
And so it passes through,
And finally lays upon the ground.
This thing, that once wuz you.

Then say, by chance, I wanders by
And sees this upon the ground,
And I ponders, and I wonders at,
This object that I found.
I thinks of reincarnation,
Of life, and death, and such,
And come away, concludin�: Slim,
You ain�t changed all that much.�

*Cowboy Poetry; A Gathering
Edited by Hal Cannon

11:50 a.m. - 2005-05-16

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

previous - next