INDEPENDENTLY THE SAME

INDEPENDENTLY THE SAME

Independently the same as everyone else

like a word in an unfinished book

whether your name is in title case

or the merest of mentions

in the forensics of a footnote

micromanaging the scene of the crime,

you can always be together and alone

at this propitious nexus of time

because the sum of many is always one

and whatever road or ray or way you take or don’t take,

whether you blow the candle out

to better see the stars

or buff your own shining

like a breath on a mirror

eventually your solitude

will contract into your original unity

like a blackhole at the center of a clock without arms

and embrace everyone as the only way

to greet and meet yourself

on this long road to everywhere

that flows out of us like blood or time

or the return address of an unknown lover

and every step we take

is a threshold we’ve left behind.

It’s true, there are things to seek,

but why try to define your own becoming

like a scribe of the rain

trying to divine the eye of the well

as if water were blind and hiding

like your own proud tears

shining like the unvoiced sorrows

of the stars at your feet?

I can hear your orchards

crashing like chandeliers

from way over here

on the other side of your eyes

where the waterlilies don’t open like stars

to be seen

and the fleets of your constellations

have been washed up like ships

on the foreign shores of a dream

that’s about to wake you up.

PATRICK WHITE