IF YOU'VE COME THIS FAR

IF YOU’VE COME THIS FAR

If you’ve come this far

by the very fact you could

your solitude is marked for exile.

Those who sustain

are threatened by those who enhance.

There’s a soft night breeze

blowing through the open window

and a chandelier trying to teach a mobile to dance

and a man looking up at the stars

into the abyss beyond

wondering how to be grateful

that chaos took advantage of random chance

and he’s here

amazed by the accident.

Being without intent.

Meaning without a basis in fact.

And a passion for darkness that surpasses the stars.

His longing must have reached them by now.

His compassion must have brought them to tears.

Wavelengths of insight can burn for light years

like fireflies with astrolabes

trying to get a fix on their event horizons

as if their own shining

were the only lead they had to go on.

A mirage in a desert of stars

when you’re lost

can give you a sense of direction

to the watershed of your radiance

as well as any other approach to the vastness can.

He picks a few yellow leaves off a green plant

in a bone-dry apartment

and for a moment he’s Adam in the garden again.

He realizes that promoting life

is his way of cherishing his own.

And then he ruminates on its perishing

on his way to the garbage can

to dispose of the heart-shaped leaves

like phases of the moon

on the pages of an obsolete calendar

with pictures of the scenic past

inviting you to come and visit.

What’s a guest to do by himself

when there’s no one else

in the lighthouse

to play the host

but the ghost of God

wandering like smoke along this lonely coast

trying to make the sea stand still

knowing that’s the one commandment

it can’t fulfill

and probably what got him killed?

Prayers are more sincere at a seance

than they are at church.

Widow watch in a dark tower

long after the search has been called off.

He lights a candle.

He blows it out.

He sits down at his desk

and listens to the raging rant

of a heart-broke drunk outside

smashing the love letter he meant to write

like an empty whisky bottle

in the indifferent street light

on the rocks of a lip-syncing mermaid

who’s just jumped his shipwreck

for a lifeboat that likes her singing.

He gets the message.

He’s not one of her new friends.

The man at his desk

reassesses his loneliness

and decides one bodymind

a lifetime

might be a brighter lamp

than any two a genie could wish for.

New lamps for old.

But the fire doesn’t change.

Desire takes root in its own ashes.

Two birds perch like hinges

on the door of a grand entrance

to a Janus-faced New Year

though it’s only August

that looks both ways at once

at the valley it’s just passed through like a death mask

and the view from the peak

of the mountain it’s on

speaking to God face to face

as if there were no come down to the future

of its unhinged celebrants.

Is love the long binge of a periodic alcoholic

who can’t remember

the damage he’s done

to the weather of a loved one?

Or is there something more to it

that greets the heart

with everything that’s missing from the mind?

An inexplicable mystery

that reveals a starmap

of fireflies for the blind

that no one can follow

like the white cane of a tall ship

witching for water in hell

like a lightning rod.

And in heaven

a bloodline that isn’t wounded

by a grail of sad heavy wine

that cures the ailing kingdom of its symptoms

but not the longing of the disease

for the delirium of the dream

that broke it

like a water clock with a fever.

More heretic than believer

a crow balances

like a black umbrella

on a power line outside his window.

Looking at it

he sees an eclipse of the moon.

Total.

No exit

but time

maybe time.

Even the darkness must pass.

He takes it as a sign

that if he’s come this far

the future is well behind him.

He’s a star beyond shining

and there’s no way,

even if he’s recalled from exile

even if he receives a look from someone

he can return to,

they’re ever going to find him.

PATRICK WHITE