THE PURE JOY OF WATCHING THINGS
The pure joy of watching things
come together beyond me
of their own accord
without ever having been achieved
as if a leaf were suddenly amazed by apples
it didn’t know anything about.
Watching the mind
walk on its own waters like moonlight
as if it had never heard of my name
and being astonished and delighted
by everything that goes on without me
like habitable planets
revolving around the fireflies
that show up now and again
like tiny green suns that keep them guessing
at the nature of the relationship.
Knowing time and space might be a guitar
but life plays a corny accordion that breathes
music in and out of its lungs like good air
and what you feel is
what you hear when you listen
as if no one were there.
Reasons to write
if you need them like training wheels
or crossing guards to hold your hand
and back the traffic up
all the way to the other side of nowhere.
Reasons to disappear into an expression
that gives shelter to your voice
in someone else’s mouth.
You’re crying.
But they’re not your tears.
You’re listening.
But not with your own ears.
In these realms of dark matter
you can make stars with your eyes
if you stare hard enough into space to warp it.
Things that were shrouded in fog like a lifeboat
become opulently clear as the moon in an autumn sky.
When there’s no one to answer to
you don’t need to know why
you see the things you do.
You can look at a mountain
and see the way
the mountain sees you.
Not for the betterment of anything.
Apple trees aren’t social workers.
They’re just turning their roots inside out
to be what they happen to be.
They know a lot more
about changing things for the good
by raising stars up out of the dirt
as a way of living without virtue
that makes them generous and beautiful
without enslaving the world in gratitude
without even trying
than those who grunt for evolution
like the spent radicals of a lost revolution.
Do nothing
and nothing is left undone.
Say nothing
and everything is perfectly expressed.
Be nothing
in your homelessness
and everything’s your guest.
PATRICK WHITE
