Twas a distant dance ago,
More real than a writer's rhyme,
Longer than you'll ever know,
Little to do with what's called time.
If a century or two is time at all,
Then dream of it before you go,
Then dance to it spring and fall,
For when you go you'll never know.
You think there's nothing at all to lose.
You better think again, baby,
And heed the Reincarnation Blues:
That death's a-dawning and that ain't maybe.
It all depends on certain stuff
You did or didn't do this time,
Being good is not enough
Nor partaking of Bread and Wine.
Is there time still to repent
For all the bad you did to others?
For all the gifts to yourself you sent
Instead of to your sisters and brothers?
It still depends on all the stuff
You did or didn't do last time:
Being good is not enough
If love in life is left behind.
You think there's nothing at all to lose.
You better think again, baby,
And heed the Reincarnation Blues:
That death's a-dawning and that ain't maybe.
Reincarnation Blues – Canto II
I'd really like again to live
Not this long, but longer still.
Would I then have more to give
With more to feel but weaker will?
There was a time in northern climes
When I thought and felt and sought
And willed, but failed in troubled times;
And countless were the lies I bought.
Then in seasons southern born
Fluttered the spirit's broken wing,
Or was it an angel in female form
Whose beauty made the cosmos sing?
When I ask myself what
I'm doing here I shake my head.
It's neither cold here nor hot,
The feeling I have is one of dread.
For what if I'd traveled so long and far
With little to show than a belly pot?
Well, but I loved and went to war
The war was won, the love was not.
You think it depends on what you choose.
You better think again, baby
And heed the Reincarnation Blues:
Fate does the choosing, and I don't mean maybe.
Reincarnation Blues – Canto III
A picture of Evita wreathed in flowers
Adorns the bus's runny windshield.
The driver in his mirror glowers
At the Pampa's wind-blown field.
A line of passengers waits to board,
School kids, tired workers poor.
And there she is, praise the Lord,
To salve my soul, evermore.
Sure, on a teacher's miserable salary
She's poor like the rest, but not as poor
in the soul, or mind if you prefer contrarily,
But she'll now be poor nevermore.
The seat she takes is next to mine.
she opens a copybook to correct the errors
In ink-blotted papers one at a time,
Trying to make sense of the leaning letters.
I little doubt we've known each other
In a past paradise-like life:
As a brother, lover or even mother,
Either of these would define my delight.
I ask – although I already knew --
If she was a teacher in a country school.
The question to her was hardly new:
She nods politely, though kinda cool.
“In the next town”, as she erasing rubs,
Leaving little time to make my pitch:
Come live with me and be my love
I quote as we roll around a ditch.
She stands and smiles a smile so fair:
“My English is not so good,” she says.
Once outside in the dusty square
To a big guy's kiss she answers yes.
And pointing to my balding dome,
The old lecher still seated here,
Who propositioned her with a poem.
They laugh out loud and rude, I fear.
Let me give you a piece of advice
If it's not already too late to choose.
As a lesson I can't be more concise:
Give heed to the Reincarnation Blues.