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<div style="background:#fff;border:#bbb dashed 1px;padding:5px"><a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=476770" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><div style="margin:10px 0"><strong>My Eyes Are Getting Better</strong></div><div style="margin:10px 0">My eyes are getting better <br>as I get older<br>despite the sunspots<br>and leggy eclipses <br>and when I look back <br>I can see further than I ever did <br>except it isn't the light <br>that illuminates things any more <br>it's time <br>and that's a whole other palette<br>with colours of its own <br>wavelengths faster than light.<br>When you see things with your eyes <br>the past may be red deepening into black <br>and the future a furious white-blue <br>that pushes the darkness back <br>a T Tauri star or two <br>but when you see things <br>with the whole of your being<br>it isn't time that's passing <br>it's you <br>and it turns out linear perspective isn't true<br>and things in the distance aren't blue <br>because there are as many farewells <br>in the foreground<br>as there are the prophetic yellows<br>of intimate tomorrows <br>that haven't happened yet <br>way at the back.<br>Memory isn't the distilled essence of existence <br>you can swill in your hand <br>like a glass of brandy in front of the fireplace <br>to keep warm when it's cold outside.<br>Memory doesn't drink out of a glass<br>like sacrificial blood out of a thermometer. <br>It scoops the moon out of the nightstream <br>and drinks with both hands.<br>It revels in its madness<br>like Li Po's poetry <br>not the prose of a vain Narcissus.<br>It isn't the pale reflection <br>of what was once vital.<br>It walks with those <br>who haven't been born yet <br>as easily as it talks to ghosts <br>without changing the subject. <br>I've got future memories <br>I've carried around inside myself for years <br>like the embryos of what's become of yesterday.<br>There are sorrows up ahead <br>I haven't endured yet <br>that I've already cried for <br>well in advance of my tears. <br>Is a river the past <br>or the future of the sea<br>and which one's the prophet <br>and which one's the prophecy<br>that didn't come to pass? <br>Does the man head back to the boy he used to be? <br>A couple of earthquakes <br>it was hard to stand up to <br>and the cornerstone of my youth <br>sank through the quicksand of my maturity <br>like a California sabre-tooth <br>that won't be discovered <br>until thousands of years from now<br>when archaeologists start looking <br>for missing links in the fossils of the truth. <br>Tomorrow's late <br>and yesterday can't catch up <br>but the thing that I like best about now <br>is that it never hesitates<br>to be where it will when it wants <br>without worrying about where everyone else is. <br>At least that's what I tell myself <br>when I can't stop thinking about you <br>like someone who will never happen again <br>the way love first said your name <br>as if a word <br>were destined <br>to become more famous <br>than the voice that said it<br>like an afterlife <br>reclaimed from the lost and found. <br>Where are you now<br>who came like a deathwish <br>to the geni in the lamp <br>of an unknown constellation <br>who wouldn't give you what you wanted? <br>Did you ever forgive me? <br>Sometimes it's more dangerous to be deceived <br>than it is to be haunted by a truth <br>you never believed in.<br>You wanted to live in the moment <br>as if time were the homogeneity of space <br>and I tried to tell you that it wasn't midnight everywhere<br>and somewhere the sun was still shining<br>but there are some clouds <br>that prefer shrouds to happy linings<br>and I don't remember which one of us died first <br>but to this day <br>when anyone rubs me the wrong way <br>I grant them three curses. <br>And of the three. <br>Loving someone unconditionally is the worst. <br>And neither of the other two <br>are much better than the first<br>when you're asked to decide<br>between truth and compassion<br>as if you were tasked <br>to divide the baby like Solomon<br>between two mothers <br>and you suddenly realize <br>how hard it is to choose <br>which one of your eyes to put out <br>in the name of the other<br>like a candleflame with a forked tongue <br>that sees everything <br>as if it had two shadows <br>and one of them was longer than the other<br>like the short and the long straw <br>of a subjective risk <br>that couldn't bridge the gap <br>between the cool lucidities<br>of the fireflies of insight<br>that tried to make constellations out of everything<br>and the way <br>you kept splitting the tree of knowledge <br>like a wishbone<br>down the middle <br>between my uncertain intensities <br>and the unlikely absolutes<br>of your pre-emptive lightning strikes. <br>Caesar may have accidentally burned down <br>the library at Alexandria<br>where seventy-two imminently isolated scholars <br>wrote the exact same Septuagint <br>to prove the divinity of its revelation<br>but a greater loss <br>than the amassed wisdom of the past <br>is the way your intellect <br>wouldn't take the lid off <br>a masonjar full of fireflies <br>you jammed like stars <br>into a moment you wanted to preserve forever. <br>I meet the past everywhere on the road I'm on now<br>coming back from the future<br>as if I had all the time in the world <br>to recall tomorrow <br>without a sense of urgency.<br>Or as I once said to a beautiful young artist <br>when she was poor and nameless. <br>Until you've bought <br>your own work back <br>at a garage sale<br>for next to nothing<br>you can't be sure<br>you're going to be famous.<br>And there's no way <br>you can trick yesterday <br>out of the arms of the past<br>like the new moon <br>out of the arms of the old. <br>I was one of the tantric children <br>of literature once<br>an enfant terrible like Rimbaud. <br>I got a taste of fame. <br>I spit it out<br>like bottled water <br>from the wellsprings of the muses<br>who found their inspiration in clean living<br>but never got fired up<br>by the lack of truth in their diet. <br>I shut my mouth. <br>I was as precocious as a highchair. <br>I would go to a poetry reading <br>and turn it into a riot. <br>Fire on the water. <br>Autumn trees on the Fall River. <br>I was an arsonist <br>in a volunteer fire brigade <br>witching for water in hell. <br>Now I'm the emergency exit<br>at the end of a long line <br>of alarm bells<br>I'm swinging on like Quasimodo<br>in self-defence. <br>I don't need a mirror <br>to know <br>what the lucky don't see <br>in what's ugly.<br>Beauty falls in love with the Beast.<br>But I haven't been to church in awhile <br>since my soul<br>took out a restraining order <br>to keep the priest away from the child.<br>Early autumn along the backroads into heaven.<br>The sumac's burning. <br>The sumac's burning. <br>The phoenix is on its pyre. <br>Is this a birth? <br>Is this a death? <br>Or just where highway seven <br>meets the five eleven<br>and time intersects the timeless <br>like the red yellow and green <br>of stop pause and go<br>that hangs its streetlight<br>like the stages of a ripening pepper <br>above the kids in the crosswalk<br>of another Halloween <br>that walks with the dead <br>all the way to the other side of the living<br>like a ghost in a bedsheet <br>with a bagful of jelly beans? <br>Let the living and the dead alike<br>grasp what little they can<br>of happiness<br>but if your hands are full of nothing <br>there isn't much room <br>for anything else. <br>Let go of it. <br>Throw it down.<br>Nothing's free <br>if it's still void-bound. <br>Then sit down on the ground <br>and have a good laugh<br>at your own expense <br>when you see the dark abundance <br>in the bright vacancy<br>like black matter <br>through a gravitational lens <br>that expends ninety-six percent of itself<br>on a universe<br>to keep the lights on <br>the other four parts we can see. <br>But isn't it good to know <br>there's so much in life <br>we'll never get our hands on? <br>That so much that's out there <br>wants nothing to do with anyone <br>either of us will ever be? <br>That you and I <br>and what we remember <br>of the way we created each other in agony <br>in love and lust and jealousy <br>and all those little endearing ways <br>we couldn't be each other when we had to<br>and these hills I keep retiring <br>more and more to at night alone<br>just to be closer to the stars <br>and the stars themselves <br>exhausting the last of their farewells <br>on a summer that's already turned its back <br>and gone down over the hills<br>and the way memory over the years <br>stops opening itself up like a family album <br>and begins to take on the image <br>of anyone who's standing <br>near enough to the mirror<br>for it to appear <br>in the guise of what it's become? <br>Isn't it good to know <br>that memory is the mother of the muses <br>and that the past <br>isn't a museum of dead artifacts <br>and teeth missing from elusive jawbones<br>grinning at the absurdity <br>of what does and doesn't last <br>and how luxuriously the present cherishs<br>the garbage of the past? <br>Isn't it good to know <br>memory is the watershed of inspiration <br>that flows down the world mountain <br>to keep the sea's glass full <br>of the mystic wine <br>that can drown a drunk in a dropful<br>and rescue the moon from the eyes of the blind<br>who refuse to get into the lifeboat<br>when they're asked to leave <br>everything else behind? <br>Isn't it good to know <br>however many fools go to school <br>and fall in love with knowledge <br>like ladders with windows <br>they can look at the world through <br>like enlightened towers <br>with an elevated view<br>of what surrounds them out there<br>that even when we die to one another<br>we're still exceptions to eternity <br>and not the rule? <br>That we remember each other creatively<br>and not as we were<br>once and for all forever for good <br>as the people way back when <br>who misunderstood <br>when you leave someone <br>you don't add them<br>to the great resevoir of the past <br>like a future you left behind you <br>that couldn't last<br>because time had done with it<br>the same thing it does<br>to the emotional life <br>of any other pyramid <br>lost the sands of an hourglass.<br>The future's just a ruse of time <br>that sucks us into <br>accepting the present <br>as a provisional compromise <br>with the moment at hand<br>as if history without a past <br>were the only alternative left <br>to living forever. <br>But however we refine clarity <br>it's still not enlightenment<br>if you're still telling the story <br>and the story isn't telling you <br>at the same time <br>in another universe <br>stranger than this one<br>that makes us up as it goes along <br>out of whatever it comes upon<br>like someone far away we'll never meet<br>but we keep looking for in the eyes<br>of every human we greet <br>like a myth of origins <br>taking its seat around the fire<br>like a house of the zodiac<br>that bears credible witness <br>to the truth of the fact<br>that time is more of a maniac <br>than a liar.</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=476770" data-title="My Eyes Are Getting Better de Patrick White" data-description="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
w..."></div>
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