To A Young Poet
As you are now, and I have been
a long branch at the top of the tree
in a black spring, reaching out
for the fury of a distant star
to adorn your spine
with a leaf of light
that might be the sail
on a boat full of worlds
that will thunder like windfall fruit
or an army of hearts
pulsing across the drumhead plain
of your moon-salt thoughts,
their liberation, a sea of blood,
a squall of vipers, a murder,
and a brazen idol away
from the beguiling taste of another paradise. What
does this mean? This means
I come before you
like a brutal lighthouse without a warning,
unfolding wings of light like a stormbird
slipped like a letter
under the door of huge winds
that have driven most sailors to shore,
prudently seasoned
by what the ocean can do. But you are
a creature of the depths,
a volcanic thermophile
grown gigantic in your darkness
and your solitude, the Cyclopean shadow
you would cast on the castle walls
in the tiniest burning house of time
if only there were light and life enough
to convince the grotesque it’s beautiful;
the folly of your unknown world
is the secret wisdom of a second moon. Not
insane enough yet
to be a credible witness
to the antics of your own asylums
where the mad angels
swear you’re real and fling you like a drug
they won’t take across
the lunar floor
of your infamous acquiescence, I come to you
like a prophetic lighthouse, arms of light
outstretched on the edge of a towering cliff,
pleading like a Druid with God
for answers I could sacrifice
like rams and humans
to questions on the altars of a mountain brain
that heaves me like a continent
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poem by Patrick White
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