DON'T ASK FOR ANYTHING

DON’T ASK FOR ANYTHING

 

Don’t ask for anything

and I’ll give you everything.

Don’t demand I do anything

and there’s nothing

I won’t do for you.

You don’t have to be interested

in the same things I am

if there’s no difference

in our two solitudes.

I don’t need to know

where you’ve been

or where you’re going

or why I’m still here

as long as things are flowing.

I’m not in the habit

of entering the dark

by turning the lights on

but I don’t mind the occasional lamp.

So shine as you wish

down upon nothing

and I’ll wait like the Buddha

to be enlightened by Venus in the dawn

and running ahead of the sun

you’ll be the morning star

before it fell for Lucifer

and even then if you wish

I’ll be your desolate kingdom.

I won’t wear a clown’s facepaint

to conceal the lie

of my personal history

and you won’t need to apply

cosmetics to your mystery

like moonlight on eyelids of water

because what I will always find

most beautiful about you

is the part I haven’t seen.

And we don’t have to mean

anything to each other

you can read in a magazine

about young scars

falling in love with older wounds

because we’ll live in the moment

as if it were the afterlife of time

where no one’s ever heard of eternity.

I’ll deepen the dark

to enhance your radiance

and we’ll come together like opposites

in the eyes of the one seeing.

And you’ll encourage me to paint

more dynamically abstract

instead of stuff that sells

but it won’t be a contest of wills

as I read your poems out loud to myself

and remark to the dust on the windowsills

the muses live in the mountains

darling

not the hills.

But it won’t mean anything

by the end of the night

if we’re both singing a different song

you on the green bough

and me on a dead branch

and every pebble in the pyramid

it took so long to pile up like quicksand

is the foundation-stone

of an avalanche

that will bury both of us in a desert

that feels right at home

with necrophiliacs and thieves.

So when you drink wine in Ottawa

I’ll get drunk in Perth

and should you die

of an astronomical catastrophe

that wipes out life on earth

I’ll be the simple thermophilic bacterium

that elaborates your re-birth

in a new medium

you’re perfectly adapted to like me

who’ll be waiting for you

to crawl up out of the sea

onto land again

as you did last night

and then after a short walk upright

through the tall dangerous leopard-crawling grass

like a waterbird that leaves no trace

of its presence behind

take flight in the life of the spirit

as if my words were uplifted by your voice

like fire on the wind

so you can see

though I may be dark

I’m not blind.

And I can be

something close

to what you had in mind

when you first read me

that old myth of origin

like a bedtime story

that always began

with once upon a time.

I’ll be your knight and dragon in one

and overcome myself

on the way to your rescue

like Perseus unchaining Andromeda from the rock

by giving lock-jaw to a ravenous sea monster

by holding up Medusa’s severed head

like the red ghoul of the star Al Gol

burning like a hot jewel in a frigid constellation

or Don Quixote tilting at windmills

to keep them turning

or Sisyphus dreaming

of building the Taj Mahal one day

if he just keeps plodding away

up and down his little hill

without reservation

and a lot of good will.

 

PATRICK WHITE