Poems (Kennedy)/Reincarnation
Appearance
REINCARNATION?
THEY come to all of us just now and then, Like fleeting spirit-memories,The visions of some place we never saw— Elusive, fading, phantasiesThat startle us as old familiar haunts We knew and loved in some lost time,Some age forgotten that has dropped away As dies the cadence of a rhyme.
We turn a page, and there before us lies A picture of the crawling Nile,And instantly we know, untold, what lies Beyond the rushes, mile on mile.We are not here, for we slip back again, A part of that far age and land—With Cleopatra and with Antony, Treading those wastes of desert sand.
Or in a room of guests one speaks of Rome, The room fades out, and in a breathIn crowded Coliseum we have turned Our thumbs to signal life or death.Or else again in thought of storied Greece We feel a wind like fanning flame,And know that once we ran a panting race In long forgot Olympic game.
Or coming closer to our daily life— Sometimes we reach a stranger's doorAnd recognize it through mysterious sense And say: "We have been here before,"Though we are sure we never trod the path Nor saw the house until that hour;Yet there is etched upon our consciousness The merest detail of a fragile flower.
What can it be, this submerged other self, This surety of having seenAnd been a vital part of those lost years That time's relentless sickles glean?Have we lived other lives than this today, Recast each time in varied mold,And are these prescient instincts memories, In very truth, of days long told?