One Life, Many Lives
I entered a room
and saw familiar strangers
and knew in an instant
they were me: past lives
made living flesh again.
I saw the fat baby, 38
pounds at one year!
(Poor Momma's back!)
I saw the angel-face boy
of four who spoke only
gibberish-- the doctors
told my parents "Sorry,
but he's an imbecile,
best send him far away."
Lucky for me, Mom And Dad
got a second opinion, and
six years of speech lessons
till I spoke like a happy
little English lord....
Then I saw the teenager--tall,
gaunt of cheek, dismissive of
lesser intellects. I grimaced,
and he sneered: I did not like
him, nor did he like me
(though we both lamented
his forlorn virginity)
Behind him stood a 20 something.
I had filled out by then, handsome,
confident with women, tossing them
aside like used hankies, not knowing
how vast was my emptiness-- not
even knowing I was a blind man
until...I crashed into that fog-
shrouded iceberg called Death.
And Death took me to that terrible
place where my soul burned briefly,
and then, without explaining,
returned me to life.
My soul, which one day I had
not believed in, and the next
I knew to be absolute, had been
seared but my eyes finally opened
and I began to see beyond
this world of pleasure and pain,
hunger and feast, war and peace.
Then I met my married self, and
shared with him the happiest day
of our life, when she said yes
to a man still lacking but at
least now trying. Decades later,
he is still inching closer to God.
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