Climber, Thought Dead, Walks into Katmandu

If you ask me what it is like
to be alive, then I will tell you
what it is like to be dead.
Being dead is never having
been alive. It is a stone, a cloud,
a mountain, ice. For as long
as you believed me dead, I was
a stone, a cloud, a mountain, ice.
If you ask me if, at the moment
I slipped on the ice, my life
passed before me, then I will tell
you my death passed before me,
white and cold. If you ask me
if it is a miracle, then I will tell you
I do not believe in miracles, but
you may if you need one for your
reasons. If you ask me nothing more,
then I will tell you what to remember:
He fell from the tallest mountain in the world.