A Tourist Bus Ride (revised and expanded)

Death is one of those subjects your thoughts keep coming back to.  I wrote the first two stanzas of this poem more than five years ago.  The third stanza only popped into my head last week.  The original impetus comes from a quote from His Holiness the Dalai Lama -- We are all here on this planet as tourists. 

Wouldn't it be funny

If the business end

Of our journey

Through life and death

Really was arranged

Like a hop on hop off

Tourist bus for which

One ticket purchased would

Beget successive rides

Much the same way

We progress from

Dream to waking state

In serial fashion with

Each nap (or lifetime)

Providing further occasion

To disembark before

It's time to move on 

But then again

Death might resemble

Queueing on line

Or being put on hold

By customer service

For what seems 

Like an eternity

And no less frustrating

If it turns out we’re unable

 To secure a seat

For the next bus ride

Each day awaking reincarnate
Each day a lifetime unto itself
Wild and precious but far from singular
We journey across all our lifetimes
Carrying the carapace of karma
Along on our backs