O Sweet Freedom
O sweet freedom to be nothing for awhile.
To blindfold the clock
with its own shadow
like a masked bandit
and let it get away with something for a change.
I love the cheap thrill
of feeling like a thief
with an ageless sense of timing.
One tug on my serpentine spinal cord
and I unplug my electric identity
like a searchlight
that keeps its eye on me
like a blackhole it doesn't know anything about.
I've stopped looking for meaning
in the flight of the doves
I release from their cages
like words stuck in the throats
of Selkirk chimneys
like harps and hearts and wishbones.
The joy of a liberated dove
I'm out!
seems to be enough of a rapture
to give meaning to the spontaneous outburst
of an enlightened universe
as if it had just broken through
to the other side
of its own koan
like an iron cosmic egg.
Like a Rinzai master shouting Katsu!
and throwing down his horse-hair hossu.
Like me sitting here
in the middle of a small heritage town
without feeling I'm one of the original fieldstones
of the bank across the street.
O the sweet freedom
to let the waters of life
take great liberties with my roots
to let whatever flowers in the wild starfields
hidden in the white darkness of noon
bloom as they will
and whatever comes to fruition fall
like the stroke of midnight
beheading the clock on the wall
so Cinderella
doesn't have to hurry home from the ball.
Not to be.
Not to see.
Not to do anything
that wasn't already done in the first place
and all the bonds that baffled the dawn
[...] Read more
poem by Patrick White
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
