LIFE CYCLE: a sestina

LIFE CYCLE: a sestina


Snow provokes responses that reach right back to childhood.
But as snow melts to nothing, responses, too, burn out.
Snow is ephemeral and life also is like that.
Yet through ephemeralness there’s continuity.
Snow melts, flows, rises and snows, this cycle never ends.
Just as life meets certain death; in death we are reborn.

It is true that after we die we would be reborn,
But none knows when and where we shall spend our next childhood.
Quest for this rarely does start, if starts it never ends.
When and where we shall be born, one just cannot find out.
Somewhere a child has been born in continuity,
But in this world it’s not possible to find out that.

Rebirth does take place, many instances do prove that.
Children have recounted past lives’ details when reborn.
But, in fact, unwelcome is this continuity
Of experiences from past life to next childhood.
That is why past memories do always get blocked out;
By the time the child is four years old this saga ends.

But it is impossible scientific quest ends.
Research published in scientific journals shows that
Some professors told themselves, “The truth, let us find out”.
They interviewed the children who claimed they were reborn
And concluded that hundreds of scrutinized childhood
Showed that from death to birth there was continuity.

Besides the children’s tales what proves continuity?
Ii is not that with childhood the process itself ends.
Effects of the past lives do extend beyond childhood.
The results of psychoanalysis have shown that
When a person dies and lives another life, reborn,
In his dreams the previous memories are played out.

Let us summarise what results research has brought out.
It shows a cycle of births with continuity.
Subconscious mind has past lives’ memories when reborn.
It’s not that with body’s death the spirit’s journey ends.
There is now undoubtedly documented proof that
Not untrue are accounts of rebirth found in childhood.

About childhood tales of rebirth it has been found out
That between life and death there is continuity.
When one life ends the spirit is yet again reborn.




• Written for the “Quotation Inspiration: Official Contest”, "Quotation Inspiration: Official Contest"  hosted by WDC, where the requirement was to write a sestina inspired from the prompt “Snow provokes responses that reach right back to childhood’, a quote from Andy Goldsworthy.
• Written 13 syllables per line. However, there is no specific syllabic requirement in a sestina.
• For the background of this poem, please view THE TRUTH ABOUT REINCARNATION—"THE TRUTH ABOUT REINCARNATION" 
• For sestina form of poetry, a twelfth century French style, please view: http://www.howtodothings.com/hobbies/a1975-how-to-write-a-sestina.html


M C Gupta
20 December 2009