My Eyes Are Getting Better
My eyes are getting better
as I get older
despite the sunspots
and leggy eclipses
and when I look back
I can see further than I ever did
except it isn't the light
that illuminates things any more
it's time
and that's a whole other palette
with colours of its own
wavelengths faster than light.
When you see things with your eyes
the past may be red deepening into black
and the future a furious white-blue
that pushes the darkness back
a T Tauri star or two
but when you see things
with the whole of your being
it isn't time that's passing
it's you
and it turns out linear perspective isn't true
and things in the distance aren't blue
because there are as many farewells
in the foreground
as there are the prophetic yellows
of intimate tomorrows
that haven't happened yet
way at the back.
Memory isn't the distilled essence of existence
you can swill in your hand
like a glass of brandy in front of the fireplace
to keep warm when it's cold outside.
Memory doesn't drink out of a glass
like sacrificial blood out of a thermometer.
It scoops the moon out of the nightstream
and drinks with both hands.
It revels in its madness
like Li Po's poetry
not the prose of a vain Narcissus.
It isn't the pale reflection
of what was once vital.
It walks with those
who haven't been born yet
as easily as it talks to ghosts
without changing the subject.
I've got future memories
I've carried around inside myself for years
like the embryos of what's become of yesterday.
There are sorrows up ahead
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poem by Patrick White
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