Death and Reincarnation

You have forty-nine days between

death and rebirth if you're a Buddhist.

Even the smallest soul could swim

the English Channel in that time

or climb, like a ten-month-old child,

every step of the Washington Monument

to travel across, up, down, over or through

--you won't know till you get there which to do.

He laid on me for a few seconds

said Roscoe Black, who lived to tell

about his skirmish with a grizzly bear

in Glacier Park. He laid on me not doing anything. I could feel his heart

beating against my heart.

Never mind lie and lay, the whole world

confuses them. For Roscoe Black you might say

all forty-nine days flew by.

I was raised on the Old Testament.

In it God talks to Moses, Noah,

Samuel, and they answer.

People confer with angels. Certain

animals converse with humans.

It's a simple world, full of crossovers.

Heaven's an airy Somewhere, and God

has a nasty temper when provoked,

but if there's a Hell, little is made of it.

No longtailed Devil, no eternal fire,

and no choosing what to come back as.

When the grizzly bear appears, he lies/lays down

on atheist and zealot. In the pitch-dark

each of us waits for him in Glacier Park.

(Spirituality: quote. Maxine Kumin, 'In the Park').