Looking Through Me

... a window never exists 
As anything but pure continuum. Forever empty,
Its frame is only filled by the everlasting beyond
Of inside and outside

If a flower were a window, then through the split,
Lavender stained-glass of the pinewoods lily,
The first careful violet clasp of the void
Might be seen, the perfumed and petaled origin
Of the abyss might be sighted.

And by watching though and beyond 
The three wing-shaped windows gliding as birds
Above the winter trees, one might witness
A three-way bending of matter to conception,
The multiple creasing of blessing
To bone, the clear intention of illumination
Gathering itself to blood.

...

And learning how to look both ways
Through this skulled window, how to watch
Through the breast and hands and marrow, one might actually see
That transformation, that union of death 
And light occurring continually right now and forever,
On both sides of the body and far, far beyond.

from The Body as Window, by Pattiann Rogers