Life Beyond Life

I believe in a life beyond this one—
a relentless cycle of give and take,
a river that carries us, shape-shifting,
from one form to another,
not always human,
not always bound by flesh.

Each spirit wears a body like a borrowed coat,
its shape granting certain gifts, certain limits:
our human hands make tools, our minds stretch logic,
but what about the breath of a wolf, the roots of a tree?
Who’s to say plants don’t know themselves,
don’t feel the sun’s fingers, the rain’s song,
don’t speak in ways we can’t hear?
We are trapped in our own reflection,
blind to the lives just beyond the glass.

Every living being’s understanding, its sense of self—
maybe it all depends on its shell,
on its place in the web of life.
What does the world look like to a tree,
its heartbeat slowed to catch the centuries?
Or to the hummingbird, who lives
in the flash between our breaths,
each moment stretching wide as the sky?

And what about time?
Do other lives see it like we do,
one thread unraveling, one line from start to end?
Or do they watch it twist and loop,
running fast, slowing down, rewinding?
Our reality is a dance with our senses,
bound to the skin we wear, the eyes we see through.
Beyond us, the universe hums a tune
we may never understand, a song too vast
for any one voice.