He was doing fifty when he hit black ice and went into a skid.

For an instant he thought he glimpsed God’s eye

and saw a spark in there, a glimmer of light.

It might have been recognition

maybe God knew him

or there again he may himself have been the spark, in the glimmer he saw.

Was he in the eye, the eye of God?

Perhaps it was his soul,

if you believed in such things, which he mainly did.

 

His car exploded against the old oak tree,

tied with yellow ribbon for some other soul lost there

and a thousand crows, black winged against blue

took to the skies raucously and pigeons purging feathers,

wings beating frost gripped morning air, rose too.

 

And God glanced away indifferently, a little bit preoccupied

by a floater, or a moat in his eye.

He was cool the driver thought, this God -

who’d seen it all before

these thousands of deaths on country lanes, just before dawn.

 

He did believe in Him, he could not, not

because it occurred to him just then

that cold rejection might lead to death and permanent destruction.

And he had better plans than to be a little speck in the Beatific eye,

unrecognised, not thought about, an anonymous, unknown, forgotten soul -

a cast on the mighty retina of the mighty all seeing Deitific one.

 

Perhaps he was not after all in God’s eye then and the spark he saw

was simply a slant of early morning summer sun

or a reflection of the car’s polished chrome or the rear-view mirror perhaps?

Shattered as it was.

In which case there was no hope, no future life

the Jews had got it wrong and the Christians too

and all men of faith were faithless then, drowning in the drip-drip

of gasoline and oil.

 

It takes such sudden shocks to lead to revelation

to open eyes and minds

as you fly through the air, through the broken screen

head held back, arms out wide

coat spread like Superman or Batman without his Robin.

You should have buckled up – you lazy prat, he said

but only a coal black crow heard

and he didn’t care what his breakfast said.

And then

I believe he screamed,

‘I believe,’ he screamed.

And the crow said, ‘yeah, of course you do

and  caw, caw, caw!’

 

He missed the tree, landed in half-grown wheat, soft mud

‘Bloody Lucky,’ the paramedic said

‘We had one earlier like this and he was dead.’

 

Recovering in intensive care

he started, in a lazy way at first

later more desperate,

to seek out the eye of God

but it wasn’t there.

Was it ever, he wondered out loud and

the staff nurse told the student nurse to pay no heed

Poor chap, she said, his brain is mush

he’ll never be the same again.

And eyes half closed, her lips pouting, she mimed the words so he would not hear

‘he’s a vegetable now, you know.’ she said.

And he dribbled and his eyes ran

and he thought the cause might be a speck in one of them

and that might be the very same speck he’d seen

within the eye of God now shaken loose by the violence of the crash.

 

And God looked down and sighed.

I never saw it coming, He said,

the ice, the tree - the whole bloody thing.

I must confess

I missed the boat on this one

and him a believer too.

Oh well, I can’t be everywhere – omnipresence is overrated and hard to do –

besides I had something in my eye – a speck, I think it was,

or perhaps a tiny fly.