Transmigration

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Transmigration

“Don’t grieve. Anything you lose, comes round in another form.”

--Rumi.

One prehistoric moment,

43,000 years ago,

             I was a hunter;

                       a Cro-Magnon

                                as I understand it now.

A monstrous cave bear slew me,

                                and my essence,

                                my spiritual self--

                                                   something I had been

completely unaware of,

                                became a dimensional surfer,

                                existing on multiple levels,

                                spending eons

as teacher, sage, companion, healer & co-creator,

                                                   a black hole diver,

                                                   a  cosmic pilgrim,

& although for me time did not exist, yet

tens of thousands of years rolled by

on this plane of existence.

I began to ache for the earth,

pining for a verdant emotion-soaked adventure.

I became aware 5000 years ago,

embracing some fresh kind of sentience;

I had transmigrated into a new non-human form,

one of the proud genus Pinus Longaeva,

a bristle-cone pine.

I had always been a loner, pariah even,

so this form suited me well, growing

just below the tree line at 9000 feet altitude;

a solitary sentinel in a hoary grove of Ancients,

growing where nothing else could, there

in the Great Basin, between the Sierras

& the rugged Wasatch.

I soon learned to love the centuries creeping

by ever so slowly, like my sap--the cold temperatures,

dry soil, high winds, short growing season ensured

that my rate of growth was blissfully lethargic,
as my Nirvanaic meditation deepened.

What unbelievable joy it became

to be completely aware of the events

on this planet, & yet be impervious to them;

my incredible life form was extremely drout-tolerant,

resistant to insects, weather, wind, & fungi,

my flesh was very dense & resinous. 

Among my kind we also have our spiritual codes.

Our role of non-intervention with mankind, our designation

as Watchers & historians was well entrenched

in our plant mythos--our godhead being Old Tjikko,

a Norway Spruce in Sweden believed to be

10,000 years old; an adolescent Tree of Life.

Kind of amazing to consider that when I was

but a sapling, 5000 years ago, writing had just

been created, & so I have been a non-biased

witness to all of recorded history:

3300 BC--the early Bronze Age.

2500 BC--the great pyramids at Giza.

1500 BC--the sack of Babylon.

  800 BC--the rise of Greece.

  100 BC--the Roman Empire

   800 AD--Charlemagne crowned Holy Roman Emperor.

  1000 AD--Lief Ericson visited Canada.

  1206 AD--the rise of Genghis Khan.

  1298 AD--Marco Polo published his tales of China.

  1347 AD--the Black Death wiped out 50% of Europe’s population.

  1506 AD--Da Vinci finished painting the Mona Lisa.

  1607 AD--Jamestown, Virginia became first permanent colony

                  in North America.

  1776 AD--the Declaration of Independence written in Philadelphia.

  1865 AD--the terrible Civil War was fought to free the slaves, a

                   worthy endeavor even though America is still searching

                   for true equality 150 years later. 

The Atomic Age, the Nuclear Age, the Space Age, the Hubbel

Telescope, the Hadron Collider, the New Millennium Crusades;

all passing before me in review.

I actually have been dead for 200 years, still standing

in my grove, still watching. I know that it is past time

to move on, but the many thousands of years

of continuous residence is difficult to discard,

to just abandon & leave.

Maybe in my next life I will become

the first black woman to be elected

President of the United States.

Now that is an idea. 

  

Glenn Buttkus

Posted over at dVerse Poets Poetics

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