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<div style="background:#fff;border:#bbb dashed 1px;padding:5px"><a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=476534" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><div style="margin:10px 0"><strong>Crossing The River On Thin Ice</strong></div><div style="margin:10px 0">Crossing the river on thin ice, the next step <br>the beginning, and the one after that <br>the end and the whole of the rest of your life. <br>I’m listening for cracks in a mirror. <br>I’m jumping from rock to rock <br>like prophetic skulls <br>cobbling the yellow brick road <br>with glacial i.e.d.s <br>playing chess with my nerves<br>like the wicked witch of the east <br>laying bets against my afterlife <br>should I break through <br>and be swept under <br>to look at the stars as I used to do <br>on summer nights flat on my back<br>when I was young<br>only to find, older, I still do, <br>through a broken window in a palace of ice <br>like an acid flashback of my whole life <br>seen through an ice-age cataract <br>over my third eye<br>like flowers in the sky <br>strewn over the dangerous path I took <br>to get to the other side.<br>As I do. With the uncanny feeling <br>I’ve been mountain climbing on the moon.<br>I can trust the river like an instinct.<br>It’s purging to risk now and again<br>falling through something <br>to get to the other side of it<br>as if life had given you a pass <br>and you think, maybe, just maybe <br>it wanted you here for something <br>that would be made abundantly clear later<br>though for now, it’s more than enough <br>to feel the glee <br>of having gotten away with something<br>like the simple bliss of just being alive <br>to celebrate your victory against the odds.<br>But it’s crucial not to gloat. <br>Gloating makes you arrogant. <br>Arrogance makes you stupid. <br>Stupid makes a mistake. <br>And the river, like a country road, <br>will teach you to respect its leniency <br>on the way back without any. <br>So for the next half mile <br>through the intermittent field hospitals <br>of the birch groves overwhelmed <br>by the number of the fallen amputees <br>the beavers have chewed down to pencil stubs, <br>I remember Walter de la Mare’s imperative <br>about treading softly, <br>for you tread on my dreams, <br>and take great care not to wake anyone up<br>grasping stray branches I use<br>like crutches, walking sticks, and canes<br>as I place each foot down gently and deliberately <br>crossing a minefield covered in snow<br>to make absolutely sure that I don’t.<br>Because if you don’t let things dream <br>of whatever they’re dreaming about, <br>and walk softly whenever you’ve got <br>a big stick in your hand <br>like a dead tree trying to help you <br>get a leg up on crossing it like a threshold, <br>it could be you that wakes up to the nightmare<br>on the nasty side of Walter de la Mare.<br>The leaves claw at the ice-glazed snow <br>like bats at a glass-blown window, <br>frozen waves of a tide on the moon<br>flexing the neck muscles of a maneless horse, <br>or even more bizarrely<br>because life is more surrealistic <br>in the deep end <br>than it is sane in the shallows, <br>the mummified feet of Canada geese <br>who’ve lost their footing in the snow.<br>Brush wolves off in the distance <br>baiting the farmyard dogs<br>to howl at the end of their leashes<br>like the domesticated pets <br>that became of the dogs of war, <br>commissionaires at the door, <br>or come out and be torn to pieces<br>like the calves and the lambs <br>and those who fell for the ruse<br>and wandered out alone <br>and had their necks broken<br>for taking their instincts off the chain<br>to be something they weren’t anymore. <br>For accepting the challenge <br>of their old wild adversarial selves <br>like the French at Agincourt <br>only to be found in the fall <br>like the skeleton of a favourite dog<br>in hunting season south of Highway 7<br>when the white-tailed deer <br>are culled by the locals<br>to keep the population down <br>and the brush wolves at a distance<br>looking on with a hard winter ahead <br>in their strategic hearts<br>and pups to feed<br>learning from their persecutors <br>how to the steal the farm back<br>one sheep, one cat, <br>one calf, one chicken, <br>one foolish dog off its turf at a time. <br>As I am with a National Geographic <br>sixty millimetre refracting telescope <br>strapped to my back like the easel<br>I used to bring here in the summer, <br>as if I were out to cull the stars of Orion<br>by myself in a wild place <br>in the middle of the night<br>in a clearing in the woods <br>where the wolves watched what I painted <br>fascinated, warily tolerant, and sated <br>without treading on my dreams <br>and waking me up to the danger I was in<br>if they hadn’t recognized<br>the same voice that called to me <br>called to them like the sorceress <br>of a moonlit summer night <br>and in the winter, <br>the spell-binding stars <br>of a wizard of ice <br>that indentured us all <br>wolf, human, dog, deer<br>river, birch, hill, and telescope alike<br>to the crazy wisdom of an essential insight <br>that makes anyone whose blood <br>has ever risked running <br>like paint with the wolves, <br>or dared being driven into <br>deeper snow like a telescope at bay<br>or descended into a dangerous darkness <br>to clarify a wolf’s-eye view <br>of the millions of grazing stars <br>moving slowing across the heavens, <br>an apprentice of the light for life<br>when life isn’t a chore on the farm<br>you’ve been brought up to endure <br>securing a board on a barn door <br>to keep it shut like your mouth<br>when you know you should<br>but a calling you can’t ignore<br>to risk it all on thin ice<br>like Hannibal or Lao Tzu<br>crossing the Alps <br>like elephants in the dark <br>with one throw <br>of the constellations <br>that bite into the dice down to the bone<br>just to see what you’re made of <br>when you’re on your own <br>far from home<br>and there’s lots to be afraid of.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br /></a><br />poem by <a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/by.php?a=Patrick+White">Patrick White</a><div class=q>
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<script type="text/javascript" src="//s7.addthis.com/js/300/addthis_widget.js#pubid=citatepedia" async="async"></script><div style="display:inline-block" class="addthis_sharing_toolbox" data-url="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=476534" data-title="Crossing The River On Thin Ice de Patrick White" data-description="Crossing the river on thin ice, the next step 
the beginning, and the one after that 
the end and the whole of the rest of your life. 
I’m listening for cracks in a mirror. 
I’m jumping from rock to rock 
like prophetic skulls 
cobbling the ye..."></div>
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