From Cowboy Curmudgeon and Other Poems by Wallace McRae (Salt Lake City: Peregrine Smith Books, ©1992), page 49:

[I have boldfaced the words that are different from the version posted above. I have not marked differences in mere spelling, formatting, or punctuation.]


REINCARNATION
Wallace McRae

"What does reincarnation mean?"
A cowpoke ast his friend.
His pal replied, "It happens when
Yer life has reached its end.
They comb yer hair, and warsh yer neck,
And clean yer fingernails,
And lay you in a padded box
Away from life's travails.

"The box and you goes in a hole,
That's been dug in the ground.
Reincarnation starts in when
Yore planted 'neath a mound.
Them clods melt down, just like yer box,
And you who is inside.
And then yore just beginnin' on
Yer transformation ride.

"In a while, the grass'll grow
Upon yer rendered mound,
Till some day on yer moldered grave
A lonely flower is found.
And say a hoss should wander by,
And graze upon this flower,
That once wuz you, but now's become
Yer vegetative bower.

"The posy that the hoss done ate
Up, with his other feed,
Makes bone, and fat, and muscle
Essential to the steed.
But some is left that he can't use,
And so it passes through,
And finally lays upon the ground,
This thing that once wuz you.

"Then say, by chance, I wanders by,
And sees this on the ground,
And I ponders, and I wonders at,
This object that I found.
I thinks of reincarnation,
Of life, and death, and such.
I come away concludin': 'Slim,
You ain't changed all that much.' "