MORE
DIRECTLY, MORE INTIMATELY
More
directly, more intimately I would approach you
with
fingertips and lips, with the black roses of mysterious midnights,
with
eloquent eyes full of solace and tenderness, forgotten tears,
and
the leaves of our ancient longing shed like a library in the ripening
silence
of
the moment just before the universe is born of an unwitnessed union
and
arrayed like the robes we have discarded
of
as many forelives as there are
stars
in the sky and gardens in orbit. Breath of my breath, how often
over
the ages have I lingered in this dream of you, waking
from
shrine after shrine like a swallow to find you again, the sacred
syllable
of
the jewel in the well, lunar sapphire, unsayable to all but the one
who
has looked far beyond his seeing to retrieve it
from
the welter and turmoil of the world like a second innocence? Beloved,
you
have always been the firefly in my grave, the lost star
that
answered what the darkness was asking,
a
sunflower in the shadow of an eclipse, a ghost-song
rising
inconceivably from the ashes of the guitar
like
the first morning of a leaf. Together
we
have lived forever in the tiniest house of time, over and over,
like
a drumbeat or the beating of single heart, two wings on the same
bird,
renewing
and fulfilling each other, gathering and releasing,
the
river in rain, bathing in its own waters, arrivals in every
departure.
Soft
fire, fire on the moon, blood-fire, mind-fire, mystic fire,
sweet
arsonist, white heretic, you heal in your burning,
your
beauty, golden knives of light that adorn the heart they strike,
even
over coffee, even over distant glimpses of you
on
the other side of the street, even here now, miles
and
hours away among these voids and apparitions I keep searching
like
abandoned theaters for the word within the word to tell you
what
the world is, what we are with you in it, not just
the
green bells of April annunciations, or the sanguine avowals of
passion
downing
the bitter cup on a hill of skulls
or
the amazing resurrections, or the sun in your hair
suddenly
a revelry of light, or the star in the bay of your smile, first
crescent
threshing
the harvest of sunset, not just that, not just
black
lightning slaking its igneous roots in underground watersheds,
volcanoes
spewing virgin islands for sexual castaways, but the things
I
once whispered to you in a thousand languages
that
have long been rubbled in the mouths of men like temples,
things
I once said to you like the wind shining in moonlight
when
we lay down secretly by the banks of the Orontes
far
from anything but the shelter of ourselves,
obedient
in that ancient future to nothing but time and the stars
as
civilizations passed, talking to their gods. Slowly
like
an empty boat drifting through the fog
it
all returns, the many lives, the many blossoms returning to the
branch,
and
all the windfall of faces assumed by the flesh and the spirit,
fruit
on the tree of the moon again, eyelids and mouths again,
and
the many hearts that have lain like silver coins ungathered
in
the fountains of yearning that flowed away from us
into
clouds on the mountain just as we reached out,
and
all the dreams in the cellars of blood we pulled over ourselves like
skies
where
we wandered in the far fields among the flowering fires,
two
planets of bliss on a single thread of blood, the stars
beneath
our feet and siloes of silence our only bread, too full to speak,
too
vagrantly sustained by a feast of wonder to lack anything.
Tomorrows
ago, then as now, all one encounter, one greeting,
we
are mountain and valley and the echo of the calling as again and
again
you
incredibly answer like a beautiful wilderness, supernal spring,
the
origin in my end. O you who are my only passage and threshold,
let
me sing to you again of your alphas and omegas
on
the bull-harps of the moon, let me send messengers on ahead
centuries
from now to celebrate your astounding arrivals
on
the shores of all these unborn lives, future after future, wave after
wave,
the
days and dawns of our walking from oasis to oasis, island to island
in
this desert of stars. Let me drink gold from the rock,
honey
from the bone, wine from the thistle; wise, let me drink
from
the hands of a fool; foolish, drown me in a prophet’s tears;
ignorant
or enlightened, madman or sage alike, let me
see
you again under the eyelids of the moon, let me brush the hair
from
your forehead and kiss you again like cool apples in September,
one
orchard after another, wild grapes in the grass.
In
the silver of faceless mirrors I would write your name,
on
the waters of unnamed lakes I would reflect your face.
Ghetto
rose, orchid in a slum, let my sorrows rinse your leaves,
let
me fall like rain to the root and rise again through the petals of
your ocean,
let
me fill your glass and be consumed once more
on the precipice of your lips so might I be your wine and water,
this
trance of flowing diamonds. And of my joys remembered and to come,
let
the greatest and smallest of my palaces and hovels
hold
you for the night in rooms with eyes for windows,
my
body for a bed, and my love of you that makes a candle
and
a shadow of the world, this lighthouse off the watchful coast
of
your epiphanies, where my heart is a solitary seabird,
a
sample of land from an undiscovered continent, the light behind the
light
you
go by. Gentle gypsy-witch, bright voyager, again
I
have found you like a needle, mystic north, your star,
your
steady lucidity, the calm Pacific under your shining, within and
without,
direction
and retrieval, a radiance that shakes the grave
of
its disembodied contents and hands out living passports
in
the cities of the dead to ports of call
among
the lost islands of light in your eyes, greener than music.
PATRICK
WHITE
