Monday, April 1, 2019

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





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