RED SHIFT SOON INTO THE DARK, BUT NOT TONIGHT

RED SHIFT SOON INTO THE DARK, BUT NOT TONIGHT

Red shift soon into the dark, but not tonight

out of these longer wavelengths of insight

into the ongoing mystery of everything I’m aware of

and what I’m not in the lifelines on the palms of my blossoms

and in the roots of these abandoned orchards of stars.

Unattainable the things of the earth that were given for free,

I long for dark abundance, bright vacancy.

Beauty meets me everywhere eye to eye

on my own terms, and we speak in metaphors

that occur all around us like fireflies and wild irises.

O evanescent river of night, unpartitioned waterclock,

keep time with my heart even as you unravel the past

like a ribbon of blood I’ve brought to you as a gift.

Keep it supple and fluid and let the light on your waters

mingle in the sweetness of its fruit. Let no cruel day

embitter the wine of the efoliate nerves

of the wild grapes greening their tendrils

like the treble clefs of a living music

that can only be heard with the eyes when you listen.

Off road awhile, let me wander as you do

through these labyrinths of circuitous blossoming

and lose myself in people and things and wonder

at the black and white wisdom of being here

to marvel at all, and give the stars a reason to search.

Keep my wits close to my senses and my instincts

like holy books written on the wind like the smoke

of distant fires I will sit around again

listening to stories told in the tongues

of the polyglot flames. May I always

cherish the pain of separation as my most

sincere teacher, the one who beat me the hardest

for the foolishness of trying to come up for air

while I was still in the womb. May compassion

always come on the winged heels of insight

the way pears come of their leaves

or the heart grows in the hands of its thieves.

Hard, the longing to know. Harder to know you don’t.

Hard to be the dunce in the corner of your own illumination.

The persecuted voodoo doll of a witch hunt.

The shabby philosopher with a heart of gold

who took the long way round to the back of the abyss.

Or an eclipse with its thumb out trying

to hitch hike down the Milky Way like a punk rocker.

And those who live to see death in their children’s eyes,

as the ferocity of their frozen tears breaks

into little plinths and roseate splinters of shattered sky.

Hard to see people uncrazed by their own creativity

like a wet book of matches frowning at solar flares,

sceptics doubting the crazy wisdom of their own stars.

To see friends who were the pillars of the wharves

you said hello and good-bye on, pull away one last time

like empty lifeboats with nothing left to save.

And the lovers who know each other like junkies

on the same drug, love potions using the same alibi

to excuse the mystic delirium of being caught

by their third eye, exalting in their passion

for whispering old-fashioned things into each other’s ears

on the thresholds of enlightened taboos. Imagine

going through withdrawal from your own imagination

burning little black holes through the windows

until they look like starmaps that forgot the way back home.

And the hasty bones that were buried en masse

like yarrow sticks in an incriminating Book of Changes.

Poverty, atrocity, war, disease, and these we ignore,

and these we praise for trivializing our attention span.

Hard to be human and embody all this in your heart.

But don’t stop. Keep flowing. Making your own path up

on the fly as you go, knowing it’s going to get harder yet.

Let me live it like a dream I’m always waking up from

with no regret. Let me cherish the terrors

for the dark jewels they sowed like dragon’s teeth

in their wake, and celebrate the fools of my doubtful virtues

like a poet in autumn dancing with the last of the flowers

as if they still had the voices they had in the spring.

PATRICK WHITE