When My Time Comes Poem by RIC BASTASA

when my time comes
i welcome time

when i die
i welcome death
like a long lost friend
of mine

when i am born again
like what they always do
babies
we start our life with a
big cry again

don't you see these
occurences in your skin
birth rebirth

don't you see how
culture comes in all
things and lives in
cycles

from fly to
butterfly
from turtle
to myrtle
doves

from cell to
you
from a mere thought
to enlightenment

from a touch of my finger
to the fire of
your soul

from the atom
to the the big bang
of the universal explosion

choose belief
have faith in the undertakings
of the stars and planets
in the sparkles of your
mind

everything comes and goes
and entwines and
climbs
ladder to ladder
cloud to cloud
space to space

unknown to known to unknown
have
and not have
none and full

you do not understand them
now
until one night when you
gaze to the heavens
and see the distance

between you and them
and then you close your eyes
and all of them are
just right within you

brothers and sisters
and kin and parents and
ancestors

one big world
in the most intimate moment
of this and that

i, will, choose, rebirths
a thousand times
i, will, choose, pain.