It is a strange and wonderful fact to be here, walking around in a body,
to have a whole world within you and a world at your fingertips outside you.
—John O’Donohue

•••

We talk about the re- (as in incarnation)
with great hope (even if we’re mostly joking)
about perhaps getting another body,
another chance to do it again,
get it right, maybe.

But haven’t you already gotten
your money’s worth out of this body,
despite its trials? Apparently,
thankfully, the warrantee’s not up yet.

Who could’ve predicted, when you
were a tiny person fresh out of the egg,
precisely how this body would grow
and change, would love and be loved,
would stumble and bumble
and become so humbly human?

Sure, you look in the mirror and don’t
recognize that gray-haired woman
or thinning-haired man, a far cry from
the younger you still deeply imbedded
in your bones—no matter how much
they ache. You may wish for a do-over,
another incarnation.

But not so fast, my friend.

These bodies, each one a garage for our souls,
with our beating hearts and breathing lungs,
contain a whole world inside us,
moving through the world outside us.

And if we’re here, organs still breathing
and beating, it means that this incarnation—
when you’ve gotten so much of it right—
isn’t over yet.

There’s more to this wild ride,
as frustrating, bumfuzzling, mystifyingly
joy-filled as it is—such a marvel,
this strange and wonderful adventure,
indeed.

•••

(Wishing Guy Howard Klopp a most happy birthday,
with love and gratitude from his fans, including me.)