Window Rock

     by Gary David

	window rock
	door tree
	roof sea
	wall stone
	human seeing
	nature’s doing

I took a walk in the desert, ended up
near my deathbed
in Intensive Care. How I got there
by car, God only knows
or doesn’t. Like Teilhardt
that French Jesuit said, perhaps
He (capital H obligatory) is not
omniscient
but evolving like the rest of us
poor bastards
toward Point Omega.
I took a walk in the desert.
Dehydration, sunstroke, kidney failure.
Drought, heat wave, polluted aquifer.

	rock window 
	tree door
	sea roof
	stone wall

Blood pressure 80 over 30 and falling,
I floated toward the ceiling, watching
alpha paramedics stick the I.V.
in my arm, slap on
a lifeline oxygen mask.
(Looks like death to me.)
I was detached. Curious
but calm, except for
Hey! That’s my favorite shirt
you’re ripping open. 
I woke up in a hospital gown.

If I could see past layers
of life upon life to the afterlife—but for me
no luminous tunnel loomed
so I can’t. Not yet. I must be
content                                                                             
to toss syllables on a blank sheet— 
little pebbles by which
I try to shatter reality

	doing nature’s
	seeing human
	being window
	being rock.