Don't Know Where I'm Going
Don't know where I'm going.
Don't care who I am.
No place I need to be.
No face I've got to see.
Don't care if I'm loved.
Don't care if I'm not.
What arises arises mindlessly.
What business has it with me?
Imagination's just another word for free.
Free, free, free at last
I've let my people go.
I walk without a shadow.
There's nothing about tomorrow
that hasn't already passed
and yesterday's a prophecy
of what isn't waiting to come.
One thing suggests another
and worlds are arrayed before me
like the stillness
of the lost feather of the moon
on running water.
I endure my own weather like the sea.
The lightning strikes itself like a match
to take a look
but there's no one to witness the clarity.
I don't taunt my ghost like a man
who's going to live forever.
If I flower I flower.
If I shine I shine.
Whatever appears
in the black and white mirrors
of the infernal or divine
may or may not be
the meaning of my roots.
My affirmation refutes
what my denial ordains
and the cause doesn't
account for its effects.
I am the perfection of all my defects
so enlightenment and ignorance
are two waves of the same awareness in me.
The fool and the sage speak with the same voice.
Desire beatifies my heretics
like lies I've told to the stars
but their election was never a choice
and my wounds don't seek the truth
in the afterlife of my scars.
The old man does not say I am old
nor I am young, the youth.
Autumn is not older than spring
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poem by Patrick White
Added by Poetry Lover
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