The Being

In the hospital with cancer,
Having pushed your wheelchair as close
As could to one sunny window,

The compound memories of days,
Whole days, alone on the mesa
Under a sun-struck juniper,

Lizard basking, browsing through books,
Working on phrases, grasshoppers
Stuttering in the high, dry grass,

Appear hallucinatory,
Pure shimmering in retrospect,
The oak-mantled, rolling cliff tops

Like an arena around you,
An empty arena, full up
With sunlight. That you lived,

That you were ever so fortunate
As to have lived whole days like that,
The being at peace in pale shade.