THE PURE JOY OF WATCHING THINGS

THE PURE JOY OF WATCHING THINGS

The pure joy of watching things

come together beyond me

of their own accord

without ever having been achieved

as if a leaf were suddenly amazed by apples

it didn’t know anything about.

Watching the mind

walk on its own waters like moonlight

as if it had never heard of my name

and being astonished and delighted

by everything that goes on without me

like habitable planets

revolving around the fireflies

that show up now and again

like tiny green suns that keep them guessing

at the nature of the relationship.

Knowing time and space might be a guitar

but life plays a corny accordion that breathes

music in and out of its lungs like good air

and what you feel is

what you hear when you listen

as if no one were there.

Reasons to write

if you need them like training wheels

or crossing guards to hold your hand

and back the traffic up

all the way to the other side of nowhere.

Reasons to disappear into an expression

that gives shelter to your voice

in someone else’s mouth.

You’re crying.

But they’re not your tears.

You’re listening.

But not with your own ears.

In these realms of dark matter

you can make stars with your eyes

if you stare hard enough into space to warp it.

Things that were shrouded in fog like a lifeboat

become opulently clear as the moon in an autumn sky.

When there’s no one to answer to

you don’t need to know why

you see the things you do.

You can look at a mountain

and see the way

the mountain sees you.

Not for the betterment of anything.

Apple trees aren’t social workers.

They’re just turning their roots inside out

to be what they happen to be.

They know a lot more

about changing things for the good

by raising stars up out of the dirt

as a way of living without virtue

that makes them generous and beautiful

without enslaving the world in gratitude

without even trying

than those who grunt for evolution

like the spent radicals of a lost revolution.

Do nothing

and nothing is left undone.

Say nothing

and everything is perfectly expressed.

Be nothing

in your homelessness

and everything’s your guest.

PATRICK WHITE