THE STARS SO NEAR

The stars so near it seems the approaching morning

could wet its thumb and forefinger

and pinching their wicks like intimate candles

that have held the lovers close

and the ghosts at bay all night

put them out with a hiss.

An ancient mirror deep within me

I couldn’t bring myself to bury

with the woman who once looked into it

is beginning to flood like a river of eyes with autumn rain

and I want to cry for things

that have departed like water birds

from their circuitous reflections on the mindstream

and leave the heart knocking

like an empty lifeboat against the rocks

that no one sings from now.

I’ve stared at the moon several nights in a row

as if we drank from the same skull

and I want to elevate my tears to a higher level

as a rite of passage worthy of what I mourn

but no lights on in the lockmaster’s house

me and the moon both know

how impossible it is to raise the dead

from their watersheds

by adding a few tears to a dry seabed

out of the largesse of the living

in the wake of so many shadows.

I’m trying to align my third eye like a bubble

in the middle of a balance beam

and build on the cornerstone of the moon

a Taj Mahal of lunar coral to commemorate

the loss of so much beauty

to the things it touched like braille

as if it wasn’t enough just to light them up

but parting the depths of its fathomless veils

open their eyes as well.

I shall turn three times in the silver grass

and stretching my body out like a scar upon the earth

lay down in a deer-bed by the river

with her absence bigger than the night for awhile

and listen to the frogs and crickets

as I used to listen for her footfalls on the creaking stairs

and the moon won’t lay its sword of light on the waters

like a vow of separation to keep us apart

and I shall ask every star

down to the sixth magnitude of time and shining

what has become of her who used to weave

English ox-eyed daisies into her hair

as if she were already among the constellations

showing off the lesser luminaries of earth

as if there were nothing so small

nothing so slighted or disregarded

no moment of life so devoid of inspiration

even the fireflies that can’t stay fixed in one place

long enough to beat a path into a zodiac

and elaborate their own creation myths

into something unborn and unperishing

weren’t enlightened

by the immaculate darkness of her transience.

To suffer everything as if it were a blessing she once said.

I look up through the leafless bough of an aging maple

twisted like a burnt match stick

whose fire’s just flared out.

I look up at the stars

as if they’d built their webs between the branches

like momentary dream catchers.

And I can’t manage it.

PATRICK WHITE