THE LAST TACTIC

THE LAST TACTIC

 

The last tactic of a spiritual user

is to become a martyr

for something he doesn’t believe in

just as every true loser has a hero within

that just can’t get out.

I appeal to the muses of absurdity

that live like eleven star-nosed moles

in the seven cosmic wormholes

in the golden apples of the Hesperides

to inspire me with enough crazy wisdom

never to live my life

as if it had to be worthy of me

and not the other way around.

Never to try and make space bend to me

as if I were the direction of gratitude.

All true stars

radiate their shining away from themselves

so others can see who they are.

You can rise with the sun in the morning

of another talented day

or you can go down with the moon

like the dark genius of a deeper insight

that’s more than the sad immensity

of life on earth can say.

Never let me forget

for one moment

whether life groans

like the stone of the firmament

grinding starlight into wheat

with the plodding heart of an ox

or the path is gilded like running water

life’s most sublime experience

is a blissful kind of mindless play

that’s as clear as the heart of a child

older than innocence

and more profound

than sorrow was to joy

long before the Buddha was a boy.

Never let me regret

compassion is a mirror

that grows old with me

so I can recognize

what doesn’t change

when I see it.

Suffering says it’s not enough

to find a cure.

You must be it to heal it.

You must grow wonderful and strange.

You must feel it like home in your bones.

As if it were your name

on the overturned lifeboat

the survivors take shelter under

when the great turmoil of being

washes them ashore on an island universe

that hasn’t been jinxed

by turning the wheel of destruction

the opposite way

to make a dazzling appearance.

Let me sing like a bird on a prayer-wheel

with every breath I free from my rib-cage

and never let me suffer the futility

of a great gift

I can’t give back to life

because I cling to myself like a stargiver

that hides its treasure

like a blackhole

in the center of its own lucidity.

If it’s ice it’s ice.

If it’s form it’s form.

But never let me wander too far away

from my own fluidity

and whatever shape I take

in lives to come

further down the mindstream

where we all come from

dreaming or awake

keep it supple so it doesn’t break.

 

PATRICK WHITE