“What is reincarnation?” A cowboy asked his friend.

“Well it starts” His old pal told him, “when your life comes to an end.”

They wash your face, and comb your hair, and clean your finger nails.

Then they stick you in a padded box, away for life’s travails.

Next, the box and you go in a hole that’s been dug in the ground.

It’s then that reincarnation starts, when your planted neath that mound.

The clods melt down, as does the box, and you who are inside.

And now you’re well into your transformation ride.

In a while the grass will grow upon that rendered mound,

and then one day upon that spot a lone  flower will be found.

And maybe a horse will wander by and graze upon that flower,

that once was you and has now become your vegatative bower.

Well, the flower eaten by the horse along with other feed

makes bone, and fat and muscle essential to the steed.

But there’s a part that he can’t use, and so it passes through,

and lies there on the ground, this thing that once was you.

And if by chance, I happen by and see this on the ground,

i’ll pause a while and ponder on this object I have found.

I’ll think of reincarnation and life and death and such,

and go away concluding, heck, you haven’t changed that much.

By Wallace McRae

Edited by Leon Ripplinger