Whew! ! Poem by RIC BASTASA

i was told, not to worry

when i was yet a one-celled body
i died, and live again
as another complex organism, a tissue,
a seed, and then i sprout
and turn into a plant and then
i die again
and turn into another more complex body
a butterfly
metamorphosed into a bird
and then i die again
and born into the body of a cow
and then i die again
and born into the body of a man
whew! it is tiresome and
so hard to remember
what i did as a man,
they say i was once a king,
and then
into, a semi-god, and then i die
again and i turn into
a god, and so on and so forth,
with a point,
i should not fear death
because it is taking me into
perfection


a hundred and another hundred years.