ISN'T IT OBVIOUS

ISN’T IT OBVIOUS

 

Isn’t it obvious by now

matter is the language

of the spirit

that expresses itself

as flowers and trees

and you and me

just as we are.

Matter is the mother-tongue

the alphabet

the periodic table of elements

of what can’t be said about God

without resorting to signs

like water and oxygen.

The runes of the mountains.

The purple passages of the sea.

And the moon who couldn’t find

anything beautiful in her bleakness

long before Samuel Beckett.

Out of an almost perfect vacuum

out of nothing

out of space

its thirteen atoms of hydrogen

per cubic centimeter

like magic beans

a longing for existence arises

spontaneously out of the abyss

as if it just remembered the name

of something that came back to it

like a lost thought

and happily blurted it out like the Big Bang.

God mind the abyss nothingness

the cosmic id

call it what you want

they’re all just waves of the same sea

iridescent bubbles rising out of the depths

like independent cells with shapeshifting nuclei

or the membranous worlds in hyperspace

that start with a kiss

and end with a face in the window

staring out into the same old darkness

like a syllable of dust

in awe of the silver-tongued stars.

Mind does its best

to take a good guess

but it doesn’t really matter

if you’re right or wrong

because everything’s

been clear and true all along.

The point is.

There’s no point to this.

You just break into song

like a bird that can’t help itself.

You gather everything into yourself

like a blackhole

with a creative affinity for stars

and a key turns deep inside you

and suddenly you’re walking

through an infinite number of doors all at once

that have freed you from yourself

like a replicating cell.

Water looking at itself

with eyes of water.

Mind looking for mind with mind.

The snake trying to swallow its own head

as a sign from infinity

that it’s going to take forever.

Illusions of light

burning like jewels

in the mirror of rain

rooted in the starmud

of the human brain

that thinks if it elaborates enough laws

it can hold the universe to account

for the cause of its behaviour.

Oceans roll off its tongue

like drops of water

from a blade of grass

and things keep on happening

like galaxies and starfish.

Be the bright vacancy

that shines out of your dark abundance

like a waterlily putting a white spin

on the death and decay of the swamp

that aspired to it

like the Buddha watching Venus in the dawn

or a magnanimous loveletter

as long as autumn 

at the end of a mean affair

that sweeps it like stars and leaves

off the helical stairways to heaven forever

like the memory of mutant genes. 

Be the eleven that comes of seven

and dot the dice with the starmaps

of the chance constellations

that rolled your way

like a genome

without asking for your advice.

If you were really down on your luck

you wouldn’t be here to know it

so why not risk it all

like a universe in the beginning

in one throw against the wall in a dark backalley

that’s been breaking banks

and bringing the house down ever since

like an incommensurable decimal

that escaped the confines

of a whole number

that couldn’t restrain it like a straitjacket?

Add yourself to things like zero

and amplify their effect

like a deep canyon foretells

the echo of things to come

that are well beyond your voice.

You don’t need to choose

when there’s nothing you can’t refuse.

There’s nothing to win or lose.

Time may well be

the adolescence of eternity

that puts cracks in its vinegar

and wrinkles its wine

but who wouldn’t rather play

than work at being who they are?

Honour the wound with a scar

that’s worthy of what you have suffered

to express yourself as you are

like a firefly in a palace of light

with a deep insight

into the black mirrors of dark matter

that multiply your afterlives like stars

in the eyes of the windows

in the house of life

that were broken from the inside out.

Astound your own vision

with the kind of crazy wisdom

that knows the crown of the universe

doubles as the dunce-cap of a cosmic egg

and say what you have to say

to add yourself to the conversation

like a bridge to the few bars of picture-music

that look and sound just like you

when you refused to crush

the head of the serpent under your heel

like the end of the long interminable road you were on

to salvation.

And you were amazed

when it struck you

like an elixir of life

emerging from the eclipse

of a dark venom

you didn’t get up off the ground

like St. Paul who had been Saul of Tarsus.

And you weren’t the Tiresias of either sex.

There was no blind catharsis.

But your heels sprouted wings

that mastered the wind like words

and the snake flew away like a dragon

with a lot in common with birds.

 

PATRICK WHITE