IF IT'S NOT REAL

IF IT’S NOT REAL

 

If it’s not real, if you’re not ready

enlightenment is a bigger folly than ignorance.

The flower doesn’t come to fruition earlier

by prying its petals open like eyelids

to see what it’s dreaming.

And the lightning doesn’t play dice

with the skulls of those it’s already slain.

It was always life’s purpose to live you in vain

as it lives the grass of the field

and the stars in the sky

elaborating itself freely

without being bound to any reason for itself.

Unmothered in the vast abyss

of your tiny awareness

if why? isn’t a calling of the heart

as well as the mind

all your apples will be born blind

and you’ll wind up dissing the sweetness

of what it means to see.

And that’s o.k., too

if you can live it through,

if you can live beyond your own answers

like a star beyond its light

into the imperious enormities of the night

where a lack of eyes

is not an impediment to sight.

But if your heart

isn’t the first frog

to make a splash

in the cosmic pond

you’ll never get off the ground,

you’ll unravel the tapestry into a billion strings of light

looking for your own umbilical cord

with a sword of salt

in a chalice of wounded waters.

 

PATRICK WHITE