It’s a beautiful day for living or dying
because if you die you live and if you live
you live. Also because so very close to
you a hummingbird sings without a sound
fifty times in the blink of an eye, and did
you hear no sound? That side of the
window pantomimes creation–sunset
hyssop and hummingbirds birthed in
bright silent light. All this packed in a
glance outside the window of ICU

while the serious man at the foot of my
bed (on this side of the window) expounds
in living sound cardiovascular navigation
and one-way valves forcing gravitied
blood to the heart. His graphic words are
seeable and auricular as Casper; he just
doesn’t notice he’s talking about creation
until I interrupt, and in this white space
he says (in parenthesis) he believes too.
All this packed inside the window of ICU.

There seems to be a choice: all these sights
and sounds loosed in hope of more days
to practice endurance so more dawns can
flood the days’ vignettes under warm lights
of hallway nights versus all the sights and
sounds loosed in the nod of death. To hand-
pick divine desire stupefies, and I wait almost
dispassionately, too curious to choose or not
too sure the choice is mine to make because
even through grace, that’s the nature of ICU.

Right. As if wear and tear doesn’t enter the
picture. Geriatrics aside, geriatrics raw, old
mind full, old heart holy, old dreams of wild
rides on a hummingbird’s wings never tried
before… if not for old age there would be no
choice, there would be no time, there would
be a body not yet full, not yet weighted, not
yet weary, not yet wary of healing. Surely it
would not be a beautiful day at all because if
you die you live and if you live you live.