How To be Reborn

If I was to be reborn as anything
Perhaps I would like to be an oak tree
That grew old over many human lifespans
Watching their bumbling shortsightedness
The cyclical traps they always fell into

Or perhaps I would be a rat
Deviously dodging their attempts to kill me
Spying on the daily dramas of a modern household
Content with this as a soap opera in itself

Or maybe a shorter span
A caterpillar gorging itself on food
Only to enter a period of miraculous and short lived transformation
Emerging as a butterfly to simply mate and die
No endless years of loneliness to fill with pointless preoccupations

But all in all, this is what I say
Plant a tree upon my remains
Do not fill me with poisoning chemicals
But let me fertilize the earth that I took form from

I am grateful for the time she allotted
The sustenance she gave me
As a creature not separate but part of her
I do not fear being the clay of her remaking

My matter may be cast into different and myriad forms
My consciousness, who knows,
But perhaps towards some collective bank of future reference
It matters not

I've already left numerous evidences of my existence behind.
What more is there to prove?
But if you want to be remembered, in times long from now,
Then carve your story in stone, and you will live on longer than others.

Immortality is as simple as a chisel.

To say I lived, I loved, I nurtured
In this lifetime I have fulfilled and the rest is but jam on the toast
In this, I have been more blessed
...than many