On days like today
I wonder if we’ve lived before
If we as Viking brothers
raged and rained hell
on distant villages
with blows of hammers
and bathed in blood of battle
Perhaps we lived
on neighboring farms
in a Grecian river valley
and grew grapes and made wine
and drank around a fire
telling stories of our gods
Did we delight
in crafting inventions
in a medieval tinker’s shop?
Were we soldiers? Monks?
Gangsters? Prisoners?
Diplomats? Cowboys?
Could we have opened our souls
staring at a vast ocean
looking west
wondering what was out there?
What if we were women
washing clothes
scrubbing on the stones
of a creekbed in Africa
gossiping and smiling
and praying our daughters
would be good friends like us?
On days like today
I wonder if we’ve lived before
and I pray we will live again
because one lifetime
just isn’t enough
—
© Thomas Horton, 2017
Image Credit: The Arcadian or Pastoral State, second painting in The Course of Empire, by Thomas Cole