THOUSANDS OF WATERLILIES ON THE FALL RIVER

THOUSANDS OF WATERLILIES ON THE FALL RIVER

 

Thousands of waterlilies on the Fall River

Many petals open.

One flower blooms.

The moon.

Going through her phases

like the eyelids of a faithful lover

waiting at her windowpane

as the sun goes down beyond the hills in vain.

Loosestrife golden rod Queen Ann’s Lace

there are flowers all over the place

constellations of New England asters and blue chicory

glowing all the way down to the bank

as if the spirit of water

had poured itself out in the night

and rooted the light in the earth

like a place to belong for awhile.

Venus low in the west

and the Swan and the Eagle and the Lyre

heading south already along the Road of Ghosts

that everyone walks alone.

Darkness approaching.

The sky is urgent with stars.

A crow casts its shadow on the moon.

Gone.

My blood is enraptured

by the stealth of a secret lover

hunting along the river’s edge

with an appetite for life on the nightshift.

The water moves on.

I sit with the rocks along the shore

very quiet and still 

and listen to the same stories I’ve heard before

about rushing precipitously into things

like a universe.

Creation takes place on the blind-side

in the flash of a cosmic thought

without hindsight.

But you’ll lose your eyes

if you stare too long at that.

Better to look at it star by star

flower by flower

face by face

life by life

as if there were only so much time

and then there was forever.

The only place to look for cosmic origins

is in the details.

You can see the motherlode

in every nugget of gold

you pan from the mindstream

like a mountain of thought

from three and a half pounds of brain.

The stars know about mining.

The past is just the future history of shining.

If you don’t give off enough light and heat

you can’t give birth to the elements

that give shape to what you are.

Your light doesn’t reach out

to see that far.

You’re just space

that can’t get it together.

Ask the abyss what it is

and it will point to a star

like a luminous expression

of what it’s going through to find out.

Ask time

and it will say it used to know

but it forgot what it was all about

as soon as the first waterlilies came out.

 

PATRICK WHITE