AND I CALL TO YOU

And I call to you like a bird in the woods in the night,

this disembodied singing from the shadows,

and I looked at the moon that you told me to

that shines above us both, a place we can meet

on a bridge of our own, our faces on the stream of our tears

like candles in blossom, and I saw you by your window

in an orchard of letters and poems, sipping peppermint tea,

and over us both like one blanket, one skin, one sky

all the stars an eye can hold, and I started to cry

as if I were mourning the passing of lonely autumn flowers

that grew awhile in the wind, in a far field, by a broken gate,

and I felt everything about being a solitary human in time

unpool my blood like the threads of fate and pass through me

like the eye of a needle trying to close the mouth of a wound

pouring out its grief for everything that had to suffer and bleed

its way through life, in an empty room, a ghost come back from the dead.

And I wondered if you knew I was in the room,

and noticed the fingerprints on your windowpane,

the slight breathing that gusted in the candleflame

or felt the kiss that landed on the petal of your cheek,

or the mushroom and the arrow I pressed to your lips

or the hands that shaped the clay of your hips on a wheel.

I couldn’t get off, to show you in fetters, the way that I feel.

It’s strange to have never looked into your face with a smile

from dawn to dusk, or fallen down the wells of your eyes

like the penny of a blessing and a wish, almost a prayer, almost

there holding the soft sparrow of your body in my arms.

And I wished I had magic, I wished I had power and charms,

o I wished for impossible things from all the sad imaginings

that afflict my heart with the sorrow and darkness of iron bells.

And maybe hell’s like this, I thought, reaching out in the night

like a branch for a blossom, or the stars in the eyes of a human face,

and having everything you love and burn to touch with a feather of breath

turn into mirrors and space, a little light of life with a long death.

And then I walked with you in gardens exiled on the moon

and your hand was in mine, and both our hearts

were singing like apples on the bough of an August morning

as our shadows flowed away behind us like a wake

and we turned, and we held each other up to our mouths

like bells of wine so sweet we were one delirium out of time,

two wings hinged to the same fate, one fire, one seeing, one gate.

PATRICK WHITE