Reincarnation

This is a poem I saw in the Houston Chronicle many years ago. There was a gathering of cowboy poets and this was one of the offerings.

Reincarnation Wallace McRae

In a while the grass will grow upon yer rendered mound.

Till some day on yer moldered grave a lonely flower is found.

And say a hoss should wonder by and graze upon this flower

That once was you, but now’s become yer vegetative bower.

The posey that the hoss done ate, 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 passed 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.