THE NIGHTWIND

The nightwind is dancing with the leafless trees

under a new moon

as if they were crutches

that couldn’t keep up with its moves.

April night.

All potential.

Lilac month in the valley

and blue hyacinth soon

in the corners of forgotten yards

and for the first time today

down by the Tay where the willows

are going blonde

that bruise of a flower

that looks like a cross

between a broken egg and the moon.

A crocus

like a dab of violet paint

in the foreground of a drab impression.

The apple-trees are waiting for their brides like blossoms.

Saturn’s in Virgo

and I’m out for stars

on my hobby-horse of a telescope

that’s jealous of the easel I paint on

because it thinks it’s the unheralded genius

and can do more with light

than that other moron.

More Copernicus for the moment

than van Gogh

I cut through fields

that look like November all over again

now that the snow’s gone

to keep from being blinded

by the blazing of the town

attentive as a doe to the barking

of distant farmyard dogs.

I’m a one man band of snapping twigs

and slashing branches

moving deeper into the silence

away from windows and doors.

My telescope sneers at the vanity

of birches posing in the nude

because they’ve heard I’m a painter

into feminine nocturnal effects.

And I’ve been here before

looking for suitable subjects

but tonight I’m out for stars

and the wounded mystery of being alone

in a place that everything’s adapted to

but where nothing feels it belongs

to judge by the way they keep to themselves.

Wherever I am

the stars have always reminded me of home

as if this were the place of exile

and the testing ground

of life on earth

to see who makes it back

and I am stilled and mindbound

by such a commingling

of longing wonder and sadness

my blood burns like a lovesong

to the great absence that keeps us apart

and how much time and distance it takes

to abandon a heart that clings

like colour to the clouds.

How much darkness

must be intensified by a human

into black matter

before the ore

is prodigal with light.

All the good stars are going down with Taurus

though I can see the snakes

still flaring lethally in Al Gol

like the Medusa’s severed head

and there’s that poor man’s chandelier

the Pleiades

still enchanted with the charms

of Alcyone and her sisters

though like me

they’re getting on in years.

Longer wavelengths

Longer shadows

shifting into infrared.

All the blue-white fury

that was the frequency of my youth

the mellow yellow of the autumnal truth

that the seeing might be as ageless

as the perennial insight

into the beginningless birth of the mind

but my eyes are estranged from the light

like two drops of water on a starless night

ripening like bells

sweetened by thoughts of perishing

above the abyss below them.

Hanging from the tip of a blade of stargrass

they’re trying to remember

without crying

what became of the wedding

that wore them like an orchard up the aisle

before they’re lowered

like the eyelids of a crocus

and disappear

into the source of themselves

like a well that can’t hold back its tears

when it remembers

light on the mindstream

like a voice in a dream

they haven’t heard for years.

What can you say?

Life is a breathful.

And if I were to guess

it’s probably better that way.

Don’t wear the silver off the mirror

with too much looking

but glance at it out of the corner of your eye

in passing

as if to say under your breath

o.k. you’ve got my attention

what now?

You should stay alert to things

without crowding them out of their eyes

the way a snakecharmer

listens to the cobra

not his flute

and maintains his dangerous distance.

And don’t judge things by their magnitude.

Sometimes it’s the dim stars

like the pale one above the middle

of the brightest three in Andromeda

that can lead you to a galaxy.

But there too you have to look askance

even to see hundreds of billions of stars

shining at such a great distance

right next door.

When everything in the knowable world is relative

it’s because of the interdependence of its origins

on everything else

and blood is thicker than water

except when it’s not

but when all is said and done

we’re all the seventh son of the seventh son

of an identity theft.

Muddy Waters

there’s another mule

kickin in your stall.

Born of fire without smoke

you’re a jinn.

Born of water without ice

you shine like a sea urchin.

Born of earth without roots

there’s starmud on your boots.

Born of air without clouds

you’re welcome everywhere.

Born of stars without eyes

you come as quite a surprise to them.

PATRICK WHITE