NOT WANTING TO SQUEEZE

NOT WANTING TO SQUEEZE A TAJ MAHAL

 

Not wanting to squeeze a Taj Mahal

or Notre Dame of gratitude

out of every nugget of dirt

she used to create humans,

not expecting masterpieces in return,

God opened her hand

like the secret sign of power

and completely disappeared.

She left no traces of the waterbirds

that flew from her mouth like words.

There are no ashes you can stir or divine

to call back the original fire of creation

she disappeared into as if it were herself

she were hiding from and not us,

no koan you can break

like the skull of a meaningless fortune-cookie

to scoop out its brains and eat its thoughts

hoping at last to overstand

what can’t be understood.

Down as many shotglass grails as you like

until your’re stone cold drunk

in the dangerous doorways

of all those ailing kingdoms

you’re dying to restore to the derelicts,

wait by as many tight-lipped gates as long as you like

proliferating the perennials of your faith

like Shasta daisies,

or pole-dance like a snake turned stripper

on the axis of the the turning world

for the liars and the crazies

pleading with God to take it all off,

you’re still alone on your own in a big space.

You’re still trying to prefigure your likeness

out of the elemental ignorance

and look into the evolution of your eyes

as if the mirror came first

and who’s been wearing your face

and is it blessed, or is it cursed?

Eyes. Light. Being. Action.

What’s wrong with your seeing

that you still don’t know whose movie it is?

Deep inside where the writing on the wall

isn’t a placard at a protest,

you’re afraid of your own creative freedom

and you call it an abyss

where nothing exists

because you don’t know how

to ride your own dragon of creative fire

through a sky such as this

waiting like children without names for the stars.

You’re afraid of a gift without a giver.

You think the whole of the universe is a Trojan Horse

and you don’t know whether it’s broken or not

but you’re still looking for a saddle and spurs

to go riding down by the river

where the moon breaks her mirrors on the mindstream

to let perfection take its place without her.

You’re riding your own eye-beam through space

like the frequency of a flying carpet through a dream

you’re afraid you might not wake up from.

Born of the shining,

born of a gust of stars that settled on the stairs

of a palace of light

like snowflakes on a furnace full of prophetic fireflies,

like chandeliers of rain that have flowed like jewels

from everything that’s ever had eyes

and wept at what they saw

when God disappeared into us

like the knower into the knowing

so that the flowers could meet the stars face to face,

why do you stable your dragons

in the ashes of a spent grace

like comets you’re afraid might come loose

like the roots of a wisdom tooth

from that blind halo that keeps circling the sun

like a vulture over carrion

you wear like the crown of it all?

Nothing could be easier than enlightenment

when all you have to do is fall.

And it has been well said

that the mind is an artist

able to paint the worlds

we must live in on our own

as if we were the only ones home

in our homelessness

when we discover

God doesn’t have a return address.

God’s nakedness is the creative solitude

of the human that answers

the inscrutable smile on her face

by painting her in the nude

posing as the universe.

And she can sit that way for aeons and hours

without moving an eyelash

as you try to catch the accent of the light

of the worlds falling over her shoulders

in a turmoil of galactic curls.

Empowered like a star

that rises from the pyres of her beauty

the dark lady lets the moon

fall from her hands like a knife

and even her ashes shine

like the marrow of the new life

that glows like gold

in the darkness of her mystic ores.

The fires of inspiration ache to possess her

in an agony of first drafts

written by the wind on the flames.

And then you hear her clear voice

filling her absence with birds

in the forbidden groves of her names.

And what does she say

through the keyholes

of the thousand and one doors

you’ve kept locked on the inside

afraid of the shadows and loveletters

moving around in the hall

when you’ve achieved her likeness

by disappearing into the work with her?

I am the secret treasure

you’ve been hiding yourself from

behind all these useless doors.

Stop saying mine and everything’s yours.

 

PATRICK WHITE