For something entirely different:

Reincarnation

as the Cowboy Poet sees it:

"What does reincarnation mean?"

A cowpoke asked his friend.

His pal replied, "It happens when

Yer life has reached its end.

They comb yer hair and warsh yer neck,

and clean yer fingernails,

and lay you in a padded box

Away from life's travails.

*
"The box and you goes in a hole

That's been dug in the ground.

Reincarnation starts in when

Yore planted 'neath a mound.

The clods melt down, just like yer box,

And you who is inside,

And then yore just beginning on

Yer transformation ride.

*
"In a while the grass'll grow

Upon yer rendered mound,

"Till some day on yer moldred grave

A lonely flower's found.

And say a hoss should wander by

and graze upon this flower,

That once was you, but now's become

Yer vegetative bower.

*
"The posy that the hoss done ate

Up with it's other feed,

Makes bone, and fat, and muscle

Essential to the steed.

But some is left that he can't use,

And so it passes through,

And finally lays upon the ground -

This thing, that once was you.

*
"Then say, by chance, I wanders by

And sees this on the ground.

And I ponders, and I wonders at

This object that I found.

And I thinks of reincarnation,

Of life, and death, and such.

And I come away concludin': Slim,

You ain't changed, all that much.

Wallace McRay"

*