Citatepedia^®.com

All That I Could Wish For You

All that I could wish for you or anyone else
is more than I could attain for myself.
So far from home for so long
as if home were the alibi
that put the distance between me and a lie
I got sick of telling myself
to feel I belonged somewhere to some people
who might look up from the compass
of what they’re doing once and awhile
into the thirty-six years of my absence
and care that I’m not there anymore.
So I wish you a door that opens
before you need to knock.
And a thief in a window you leave unlocked
so he can steal your heart like sterling silver
and pawn it off as moonlight.
I suspect most people are way too clever
to ever be loved the way they want to be
and I’m not saying that I’ve never been graced
by the mystery
of waking up beside someone I loved
dreaming next to me
about things I know nothing of
because love keeps its deepest secrets to itself
like water on the moon
but I wish you the purest of fountains
from the sweetest wellsprings of life
that don’t look upon the reflections of the clouds
or the leaves and birds that come to sip from its glass
as just another mouthful of polluted words
indelible as headlines
disposable as trash.
My light’s been bent
by a lot of black holes and gravitational eyes
in the five billion light years it’s taken to get here
like a past I almost forgot I had
and I’m not saying that’s bad
though it’s relatively slow
compared to the speed of thought
that overtook it like a hawk
coming down on a morning dove.
But I wish you the immensity of a clear night sky
it will take you forever to disappear in
because of all the things
you can learn to say good-bye to in this world
the hardest farewell to master is love.
I’ve always been grateful
for the gifts I’ve been given
and endeavoured like any other B.C. salmon
to make a gift of a gift
by swimming upstream
like a waterclock doubling back on its way to the sea.
Like the retrograde motion of Mars
there may be loops and nooses and garottes in my orbit
and small raw pieces of my heart I used
to bait the trapline
to catch and skin the fishers
that kept killing my cats when I lived on a farm
not very far from here
without meaning any harm to the wildlife
that accepted me as one of their own
and like I did them
left me alone.
Except for the fishers.
So I wish you a free passage through life
where every breath you take
adds another inch of feather to the wind
like a mindstream flowing into an older river of stars
with wild irises blooming along its banks
like blue flames of hydrogen
that stick their tongues in each others’ ears
as if they had something to say to one another
like lovers and celestial spheres
and oceans in a seashell
not well-intentioned highways lined with roadkill
like the primrose path to hell that most of us take
like a short cut back to a worse mistake
than the one we made to get here.
Most of my life
I’ve felt like a fluke of the truth
that was able to win out against
the astronomical odds
of my small chances of having the courage
to stand up for it like a strong voice
in a lottery of echoes
but fortunately I’ve always been
self-destructive enough
to risk everything in the name of nothing
I’ve ever seen
but sensed was near and clear to me
like a warm spring rain on a dirty window pane
like the gardens of ice
that grew out of my breath
like the tendrils of ferns unfurling
like the treble clefs of blue violins
in a sad exiled place
where the truth was music to my ears
that fell like the sound of rain from home on my roots
but felt like all the shattered chandeliers and broken mirrors
had gone into diaspora.
A crystal nacht of jackboots
refused to see the whole
reflected in every part of me as in them
like the yellow star
of the myriad-eyed conspiracy theory
that out shone the black hole they wanted to bury it in
like something you could catch
and put in your pocket
and save for a rainy day
like a ghetto or a bank to bail you out
whenever they got so fanatically deep into themselves
everything they felt
everything they had to say
was a debt to someone
they couldn’t possibly repay
even if they could turn
the bad luck of their swastikas the other way
like the prayer wheel of a poisonous flower
like hate mail disguised as a loveletter
even the wind and the light refused to answer.
So I wish you the mindscape and spirituality
of a generous country with a big sky
where the constellations have no nationality
other than free access to the great sea of awareness beyond
that reflects all the colours of the colour blind stars
and makes them feel they’ve made it home
as soon as their light arrives
like honey bees without borders
to open the flowers
like the passports of Japanese plum blossoms
that travel without i.d. anywhere they want
like the billions upon billions of fingerprints
that never lie about our common humanity
to anyone who needs to ask
who we all belong to
if it isn’t each other
and where we all come from
if it wasn’t from the same dark mother.
Poetry has been the most ardent folly of my crazy wisdom
for as long as I’ve known how to weep and wonder
in joy and sorrow
at the mystery and the horror
of what’s arrayed before us here
with such immensity
even time feels small in its presence.
Keats once said load every rift with ore
and so I have
but the greatest discipline of my calling
the gravest risk
the royal quatternio of Orphic alchemy
in the hands of a master shapeshifter
in the smile of a sacred clown
has been to approach the shining
without turning gold into a base metal.
To taste the water without fouling the well I drew it from.
To look at the stars without getting in their eyes.
To pursue an earthly excellence
that expressed the human divinity
that was born of suffering in everyone
without giving offense to the transcendentalists
who like to keep their gods unattainable
because I could see its immanence
was a lot closer to them
than they were to it.
I could see it in the hunch-back baglady
sorting through a garbage can at four in the morning
for the hidden jewel she was sure to find
if she looked deep enough.
I could see it in myself from time to time
when my mind strayed like a white horse
with an odd-shaped birthmark
in the middle of its forehead
because it wasn’t born lucky enough to be a logo
into the star fields of my reclusive neighbour
like the constellation Pegasus
through a gap in a fallen fence
and she was there to lead it back like a muse
along the Road of Ghosts
and you could tell by the smile on her face
that she’d always met me this way
and that there was nothing supernatural
in what she wasn’t trying to hide.
I can see it in you like light in a lamp
that isn’t cagey enough to keep a dove in
even if it wanted to
and it’s as clear as fireflies on a starless night
that it can’t and it won’t and it doesn’t.
So I wish for you a long love affair
with a passion you can’t marry.
A calling that doesn’t have your name on it
because it doesn’t belong to anyone
but loves the sound of your voice in the stairwell
whether you’re coming or going
and the picture-music you set it to
like morning glory on the moon
to let life speak through you in dead earnest
as if you were wholly possessed by the play
of the hero’s entrance
and the villain’s exit
though you know they’re both taking
a standing ovation in the same doorway.
I wish you the sublimity of a single blade of grass
and a darkness as profound as the shadow of an ant
and a heart like a bell of sorrows so sweet and deep
even in a single tear
it’s way out of its depths.
And in the evening just before the stars come out
and Venus is following
the last crescent of the moon
down in the west
having wandered as far as it dares from the sun
I wish you a soul so expansive and radiant with light
all the nights to come can’t help making
enlightened gestures of glee
toward the court jesters
who illuminate your crown with laughter
like waterlilies that shine up at everyone
out of their dark wisdom
and their artistic genius for working with water
like a Zen master amusing himself
with paper boats that float
like the moon on the mindstream
knowing there’s nowhere to go
nothing to do
no one to be
and no one to set free.
Because the people all know
there’s never been a river
that doesn’t lead to the sea
or a hand or a brush or a pen
following its own cursive script
like the holy book of a lost art
that isn’t written in blood
but makes itself up as it flows along
like a spiral galaxy without a star map
all the way to the heart.
And once the lightning’s rooted in your mind
and blossoms like fireflies
in a garden of insight
I wish you never a thought
whatever the mode of expression
whatever the fashion
whatever the theme
the scheme
the dream
that doesn’t tend like all lucidity
to sweeten the fruits of compassion.

poem by Patrick White
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!