NO REASON WHY I SHOULDN'T LEAVE

NO REASON WHY I SHOULDN’T LEAVE

 

No reason why I shouldn’t leave

is not as good as a reason to stay

but the first has its eye open

while the other is shut.

So when I find myself

at a fork in the road

I don’t go either way

but pick it up like a witching stick,

and go off in directions of my own

trembling all the way

like water in a stone.

It can be deeply restorative sometimes

to be alone and lost

as you walk through the front door

of your original homelessness,

remembering where you hid the key.

Your shadow stops following you like the north star

of the threshold you left behind,

unhinges itself like the pivot

of the prosthetic arm

of the disabled clock

you’ve been all these years

and walks beside you like a bridge

to anywhere you want to go.

You can feel what a star feels

when it looks down in envy

at the fireflies all over the map

wondering if their disobedience

to the higher forms of order

might not be the fulfillment

of an enlightened discipline

that radiates out of its own

spontaneous lucidity

free of meaning anything

to whatever it casts its light upon

than the sheer delight of shining.

 

PATRICK WHITE