A Whole Galaxy Lights Up
A whole galaxy lights up for the sake of a single planet; for
the sake of a single flower, the entire earth turns itself
into a loom and weaves for a million years.
How many oceans have died to hang one dropp of water
at the tip of a blade of grass; and can you see in that blade
the untold dawns and sunsets that have risen and fallen like bread?
How many skies have bloomed and shed themselves
like the petals of blue roses
and how many birds have expired in their songs and wings
and fallen to earth like broken harps
to open up the space and voice within you? Have you
ever considered the endless generations of faces
that have come and gone, weeping themselves slowly into oblivion
like the crying glass of windows
just for the sake of one of your fleeting smiles;
or the billion nights that trembled in their dreams
for the colour of your eyes? And your blood
that is sweeter to you than any wine and floats
the boat of your heart down the rivers of its infinite flowing;
have you ever listened, deep within yourself, to the echo
of the hammers on the anvils of the aeons of volcanoes
that laboured like sacred smithies to pour and purify
all their skill and metal into your living iron? How are you not
in the least pore of your being
this miracle of so much? But tell me, you who can instantly travel
to the ends of the known universe and forever beyond
without leaving yourself, even
as you sit waiting for a bus, or brushing your hair;
what vastness of space and silence
has honed itself to a non-existent point
and entered like a gracious guest the tiny house of your bones and skin
and laid out all these thoughts and passions,
these clothes and jewels like gifts? And there
in the resplendency of the black mirror that illustrates your soul
and holds it up to you like the moon to the moon on midnight waters,
isn’t that the universe you’ve just pinned like a rose to your hair?
Beloved, I have lived ten thousand lifetimes
and discarded them like worn-out shoes,
fallen and risen from the dust of the road over and over again
just to make my way to this moment of you. Eternities have passed
and time itself has grown old and been forgotten
gods and civilizations, known and unknown
have worn away like stones like wildflowers since I first set
my vagrant heart on you, my every step, a grail, every breath,
Jerusalem, following you through the days and nights,
every sea, sky, and desert, your footprint, until I could bathe,
washed clean of myself and the journey
in the resurgent light of your beauty, that fountain
that has turned every atom of my being into a pilgrim
as if a million worlds went off in all directions like rays of light
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poem by Patrick White
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