ETERNITY IN A WING FLASH OF TIME Eternity in a wing flash of time, touch people’s hearts as if there were a housewell in every drop of rain, in every tear frozen on the moon, a sea of tranquillity, an elixir for a thousand ills, in every eye more sky than a bird could ever fly out of or a star see to the end of. Silence should leave its fingerprint on the lips of a rose, no, not should, but sometimes does when one word by itself would make a racket even the dead couldn’t blend with like the white noise of languorous bees on a purple afternoon when the trees are steeping in sunlight. Full measure and the world beside. Let it slide from your hand like a ring you dropped into the theatrical hat of a street musician. Immensify your deepest intimacies with metaphors that identify with everything like a bridge with its reflection in the mindstream that even when the stillness of the moon is upon it like a swan in Renaissance luxury, or the face of someone blind lips could read by the light of their eyes, flows as if there were no abiding place for time or life, love or art to rest in. No ventriloquist of suffering, shriek in your own voice, cry with your own eyes, and if heaven mends what hell slashed open like a loveletter meant for someone else, don’t shrug it off as if one wound fits all, or eat your agony as if it would do anyone else any good to digest what can only nourish you like milkweed suckles Monarchs, or spit it out as if you had an antagonistic mouth with intolerant taste-buds. Let it kill you beautifully like a matador gored by a rose, a scarf of blood in the eyeless sand as a sign from a dark lady she was a nocturnal mirage. And whether it was a tragedy or a black farce conduct yourself accordingly like a new moon on a widow walk devoted to waiting for someone who’s never coming back. Uphold the integrity of the emptiness within you like a deathbed you’re never going to dream in again. It’s the canvas, not the master, that’s the recipient of beauty and the truth’s not much of a consolation for the lost delight you laboured so arduously for, but don’t indict the medium because the message wasn’t for you. Life is not a reward. Death isn’t a punishment. Whatever you’ve been convicted of. The mind is an artist. Able to paint the worlds. With love. In starmud. In eyes you boil like the phlegm of snails for their purpureal irises, or the lustre of old brass moondogs gingering the clouds. PATRICK WHITE
Posted on: Mon, 07 Oct 2013 14:17:16 +0000