THE WIDENING COMPASS OF PAIN
The widening compass of pain in the
wake
of beauty that must pass deeper into
us,
the illimitable spaces within, than any
black hole
the gateway of its singularity into
another world
where the ashes of the stars we once
walked under
nourish the flower mouths of a darker
shining
than this that consumes us here in
these intimate fires
where lovers consult each other’s
desires like starmaps
and farewell is the path of a
transitory medium.
Deeper than nails, than stars, than the
night skies
we breathe so deeply into us our lungs
burn
in the cold air, to transform them into
blood,
to bathe in the fragrance of the light
in our tears,
to root the seeds of our despair like
nerves
of dark matter in the tillage of our
starmud
until the universe is shaped by the
unseen
and what we curse today as pain,
tomorrow
we shall bless in praise of what our
sorrows
came to mean like autumn to the apple
of the heart.
Give loss two wings, not one to lure
away predators
from what you cherish most in life
by feigning injury like a feather
duster
or a cedar bough that sweeps the earth
of your tracks,
two, if you want the waterbirds to rise
from the unnamed lakes of your grief
and send your longing off into oblivion
like a message that isn’t expecting
an answer
from what you seek so ardently from
love
it’s a secret you dare not speak of,
even to yourself
lest you soil it with your own
vulnerability.
Wounded, practise the art of soothing
with no thought of saving yourself.
Separate
and apart, let your eyes speak of union
as if every drop of rain flowed
like the course of the river from the
mountain
to the sea, down the broken windowpane
of the ice in the eye of the fountain
of your lament.
Poor in spirit, break the dark
abundance
of your poverty into bread you can
share
with the bright vacancy of the rich
who have squandered their shadows
on the mirages of light that deceive
them
like birds flying into mirrors of the
sky
like windows in a palace of water
that disappears into oblivion as soon
as the prince reaches out to possess
his own illusion like the reflection of
a moonrise.
Even if you’ve built a pyre of green
wood
that hisses and smoulders like the wet
leaves
of a holy book you’ve been crying
over in the fall,
waiting for a phoenix to perch on your
burning bough,
lie down upon it yourself and be that
flower
that blooms in the fire of your autumn
immolations.
At war with the world and yourself
like two halves of the same unbroken
wishbone,
teach the children how to approach
their crossroads
in peace, and speak of the sword of the
slayer
like a sacred syllable in the mouth of
the slain
that cut through your umbilical cord
like a link in a golden chain that held
you back
from the liberation of a lyrically
unbounded life.
Mollify the poison of the thorn with
the cure
in the medicine bag of the other fang.
When the wedding gown of the Japanese
plum tree
is ruined in the rain and the dust like
blossoms
blowing down the road like the
happiness you hoped for,
be the nude in the doorway of a darker
bliss
that roots its revelation like
lightning in the soil
of your flesh, like deltas of insight
greeting
an ocean of awareness at the end of a
long pilgrimage,
knowing the return journey is more
radiant than the first.
PATRICK WHITE
