Past Lives

PAST LIVES Oh, what might I have been? Get the Ouija board, the planchette Exhort the spirits of Cayce and MacLaine Take a float through the baffling arcane The past must suit male fancy “Madam Zolta consult thy crystal clairvoyant Bring forth those vaporous hosts The filmy, the whispering, shapeless ghosts” I yearn to hear some lordly title Her quartz then flares, receding to shade “Well, madam, be he of humble or regal fame? Ego falters now, but give me his name” So faint now that after breath Seems to tremble Zolta’s damson drapes And slowly in the middle half-sphere Does an almost human face appear The mouth is that first takes clear form Those tissue lips in upward curve Zolta’s chamber sudden quiet as a tomb A perfumed vapor haunts the room “I am that which once you were,” Escapes the quivering gossamer line. “And I the single past life you’ll see A dainty, silly Scotch lass – tee hee”