I'VE LOST THE URGENCY TO BE

I’VE LOST THE URGENCY TO BE

 

I’ve lost the urgency to be

anything other than what I am.

I’m not the ambulance on its way

to another emergency

I used to be.

Things have calmed down for the moment.

No oceans of commotion roll over me.

No undertow of mixed emotions

sucks me under.

And I don’t know

if this is what I really want to say

but the starmud’s settled to the bottom of the mirror

and things are very clear.

There’s no one here to tell anyway

because the darkness explains itself

and the light always gets the last word

at the end of the day.

As far as I can see

on this one-shored sea of life

there’s not a sail in sight

like a live blossom on a dead tree

and all my event horizons

have taken a deep breath

and withdrawn like tides.

And if I ever thought I needed to be saved

I’ve given up hope of rescue

like a voice in a bottle riding a wave

headed for the rocks.

I’ve learned to open the door

before anyone knocks.

And I can see what isn’t there

as if it were a lifeboat in the fog

singing merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily

life is but a dream.

I’ve stopped bending my light

in the eyebeams of the jewel-cutters

who cut along the seams of my lifelines

like doctors undoing the stitches

of wounds I’d forgotten how to feel.

Unreality isn’t the other side of real

no more than a wave

is the opposite of water

or the sky is contradicted by a bird.

But I haven’t retired into the grand harmony

by going back the way I came

like a planet that’s tired of beating around

the burning bush

when it speaks to the sun

about what it wants done tomorrow.

I haven’t changed like the seasons over the years

beating my cannon back

into labouring ploughshares

listening to the bells of sorrow

that toil and toll for everyone.

I don’t need to finish what I didn’t begin.

And I refuse to perish for my origin

by becoming my own assassin

in a holy war of one

against an estranged infidel

that rose to heaven where he fell

for his own illusion 

like a mirror off the wall.

I don’t answer the call

of anything but the wind

when it’s trembling with stars

to turn my eyes toward the same vision

of things as they appear to be

when clarity isn’t troubled by indecision.

Peace isn’t learning to live according to your scars

after the scalpel of the moon

has made its last incision

and removed what ailed you about her

like the tumour of a pearl

stuck through the tongue of an oyster.

And the greatest absurdity of all

is undermining your own powers like quicksand

when the walls don’t fall at your command

and the sea and the sun 

like King Canute and Joshua

when you ask them to stay in their place

like the shakey time-honoured cornerstones

of a nomadic race founded on bones

break into gales of laughter

and blow the world like dust in your face.

Happiness is not a mystical chalice

you can go looking for anymore

that you can squeeze inspiration

from the tit of a virgin muse.

Happiness just happens all by itself

like everything else in existence.

And don’t fall for that old ruse of an ego

that suggests you accept

that you’ve been neglected

at your own insistence

as if you had some say in the matter.

Listen to any fire long enough

and you’ll end up talking about water.

Pray for peace and war breaks out.

Look for guidance

and you deepen the loss.

Follow your star far enough

and you’ll wind up blind.

Seek enlightenment

and you’ll lose your mind.

 

PATRICK WHITE