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<div style="background:#fff;border:#bbb dashed 1px;padding:5px"><a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=476865" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><div style="margin:10px 0"><strong>So Far Down This Road</strong></div><div style="margin:10px 0">So far down this road <br>without a destination <br>my childhood doesn't <br>recognize me anymore.<br>So far into this life <br>I've never been outside of<br>I can speak to myself<br> in a foreign language<br>that no one can understand <br>as if it were the ancient dream-grammar <br>of a past tense <br>that talked its way into the future. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">So far into what I've become <br>the peduncle is lost <br>in the ensuing phylum <br>and of all thought <br>I'm the first monkey <br>to look for its origins in an asylum.<br> <br>The crow on an autumn branch <br>in the white rain <br>laughs more than it ever did <br>at the specious foundations <br>of my ephemerid profundities<br>dropping like apples at my feet. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">The minstrel warrior of the forlorn hope<br>I took up arms in a holy war of one <br>I was doomed to lose<br>like a sad generation of demons <br>who knew the wound would never close.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">If heaven isn't a club-med in a specific place <br>but saturates all of space <br>like mystically dark matter <br>then we're all falling toward paradise <br>like particles and wavelengths of water.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Heaven may be the whole cup <br>and hell a crack in the wine<br>and earth the place you sober up <br>like a bad hangover from the divine<br>but it's a party I walked out of aeons ago <br>more a stranger than when I came<br>like a manger without a sign <br>like a magus without a logo <br>to an inn that had been empty for years.<br> <br>I don't presume to teach people <br>what they already know. <br>Even hanging on <br>is going with the flow. <br>This is a delirious place <br>where the mysteries cut deep<br>and silence is the native tongue <br>God speaks to herself in.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">So far down this mindstream <br>like a paper boat I made of a poem <br>and set aflame like an orchid of fire <br>to honour a poet <br>who said it right in China long before me, <br>I bloom on the water of a prophetic dream <br>true to the unpredictability <br>of a sleeping dragon<br>to wake from the brevity of oblivion<br>with the eyes of a narcoleptic chameleon.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Joy binds <br>what sorrow releases.<br>And thought might prick the lifelines<br>of an amniocentesis<br>and offer up my embryo like a thesis <br>on whether I should have been born or not, <br>but I drink from my own skull like the moon <br>when it's full to the brim <br>above the starwheat in the Virgin's hand <br>to the stealth of the wind that dropped me here<br>like a lone seed in a huge empty silo<br>I'm trying to stud like the Venus de Milo.<br> <br>It's not easy rooting in stone<br>like the invasive metal <br>of a sword that will make you <br>king of the waxing year. <br>Things just fall apart on their own<br>like grain from the chaff of a fickle harvest<br>that rose from the dead <br>like the bitter bread <br>of an abandoned homestead<br>that walked out on itself too soon. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">But I've never been one to talk <br>about leaving it all behind <br>like some dark gate of the mind<br>I could pass through <br>like a unilluminated comet through space <br>to shine in the light of a star <br>that was alarmed at my approach <br>and blind to my passing.<br> <br>I'm more at home in the dark <br>with a firefly and a chimney spark <br>rolling koans like constellations of loaded dice <br>as if they were two diabolical buddhas <br>in the back alleys of enlightenment<br>pushing their luck to the wall.<br>They rise <br>and I fall. <br>I rise<br>and they fall. <br>Readiness is all. <br>Ripeness is all. <br>Lear shakes his fist at Hamlet.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">The blue harvest moon in total eclipse. <br>All loveletters die like political pamphlets<br>up against a closed door. <br>So far into this cloud of unknowing <br>I have given up hoping <br>will ever become a star <br>and break into light in all directions <br>to show me where I'm going<br>I give up on myself like rain <br>and release my waterbird eyes <br>to fall wherever they might.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Readiness is spring. <br>Ripeness is fall.<br>Seven come eleven. <br>No one wins it all. <br>Two squared skulls <br>up against a crooked wall.<br>I shake the dice <br>and you call. <br>You shake the dice <br>and I call out to luck like a random goddess <br>to see if she still loves me <br>as she did once tomorrows ago<br>when I won everything back.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Whether you're giddy with happy truths <br>or more profoundly belled by the sad facts <br>it's scary at night in the spirit's lost and found<br>when the lights go out <br>and no one's around to look for anything.<br> <br>Gardens of black umbrellas, <br>the wings of folded bats <br>stacked like unseasonal eclipses <br>that have lost the will to bloom <br>like flowers at a lavish funeral <br>for impoverished aristocrats.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">And courage isn't a home<br>that's all that easy to return to <br>when you're out here on your own <br>like a lifeboat full of midnight on Mars.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">So far along this long homeless road home<br>I have worn out my faithless friends like shoes <br>I took from the feet of the dead<br>to walk on ahead of myself <br>like a star with a jump on where it's been.<br> <br>Now even I don't know what I mean <br>when the words say me <br>like some black benediction <br>over an unknown grave<br>as I mourn the roadkill <br>and try to bless the turkey-vultures.<br> <br>Earth. Air. Water. Fire. <br>Four cultures that bury their dead differently <br>but all to the same end. <br>Who could have guessed <br>the angels that came to earth first <br>had the wingspan of loitering scavengers? <br>I give my soul up to the birds. <br>I give my eyes up to the sky. <br>I give my voice up to these words. <br>I give my mind up like water to water <br>light to light <br>darkness to darkness<br>to the star that has misled me this far <br>into this wilderness of myself <br>where I'm preaching stealth to shadows <br>and air to ride the wind.<br> <br>I give my heart up <br>to the thorn that gored the rose<br>like a deep insight <br>into the nature of the moon's<br>bright vacancy <br>dark abundance<br>like two sides of the same face.<br> <br>I give my will up to chance.<br>My blood to the conviction of the poppy it's fire.<br>So far beyond my last event horizon<br>I'm never coming back this way again<br>what does it matter if the path <br>is crooked or straight? </div><div style="margin:10px 0">I lay my tiny wisdom down like a hazelnut<br>on the track of the silver thought-train<br>to see if it can crack it like a koan.<br>I lay the mantle of my dynastic ignorance<br>over the shoulders of an avalanche like snow.<br> <br>However much <br>you love the valley <br>it will be the mountain <br>that sweeps you off your feet. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">I give my imagination up like a black wine <br>that tastes a little like me <br>to the muses who bruised it <br>like the great night sea <br>they drank from my skull<br>whenever the moon was full.<br> <br>Among so many sages <br>it was good to be a fool. <br>One by one the schools <br>dropped out of me <br>and settled like mud at the bottom <br>of a clarified way to see<br>that everything that passed through my head <br>like a shapeshifting cloud <br>was just water looking into water, <br>me looking into me with water for eyes.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Why be shocked <br>by the predictability of death<br>when it's life that always comes as a surprise? </div><div style="margin:10px 0">I may have been lame <br>in my approach to things<br>and limped my way like an iamb into wings<br>but I wanted to look down <br>from way up there<br>as if I were a star without strings <br>and be the way things are <br>when they shine down on nothing<br>until a nightbird in a far tree sings.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Carrying forth into the carrying forth<br>eternity might be the ghost <br>in the starmud of time that perishes <br>to give forever a meaning<br>but it's this life now <br>that talks the talk <br>and walks the walk <br>of a human being.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">I give my eyes up to the seeing. <br>So deeply lost upon myself <br>like an empty lifeboat drifting through <br>these veils and visions of things<br>that appear like sails in the fog a moment <br>and then evaporate into their nebularity.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">I give my blessing to the waywardness <br>of the course <br>that took me the way I am.<br>I give up my pain <br>I give up my sorrow <br>I give up my love my joy my laughter <br>like orchids and ashes on the mindstream <br>that flows out of me like a waking dream <br>that doesn't insist on seeing me here tomorrow.<br> <br>But most of all <br>I give my gratitude <br>to the mystic vagrancy of the great solitude <br>I approached like a friend <br>on my way to nowhere like the sea<br>as if everything came to an end in me <br>like a life I couldn't foresee.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Though I have mourned <br>life's preemptive reverses <br>I have not scarred my lips with curses.<br>I have not tainted the well I drink from.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">And nothing's ever spoiled <br>the bread I broke with others.<br>The feast is free <br>but it isn't hunger or thirst<br>that makes us sisters and brothers<br>it's the way we raise <br>the cup to each other's lips<br>like a lunar elixir to a solar eclipse<br>as if we knew we would pass <br>long before the darkness did <br>but still made the gesture anyway.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">It's the way we hope <br>we know what we mean <br>when we say we love people <br>we've never seen<br>as if they were everyone in particular<br>and love's mute theme <br>were helplessly gesticular. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">You can't keep <br>what you won't give away.<br>Life's a long sleep <br>before a short dream <br>that wakes you up far from home<br>beside the unknown road you're on <br>that winds like smoke among the stars<br>whispering ghost stories around the flames <br>of their unbelievable fires.<br> <br>By all means pursue what is true <br>but don't forget <br>mercy has its liars too. <br>I give my life up <br>to the mystic specificity <br>of the medium that sustains it<br>like a wavelength of light <br>to a sea of dark matter.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">And more than I could have ever lived <br>living alone together with everyone<br>crammed into the same planetary shoe<br>I give up all the vastness<br>of my awareness of the space within <br>and how far there is to go like light <br>before you can open <br>even a single flower of insight<br>to end your long winter night.<br> <br>I give up space <br>like my place at the table <br>where I stood like a tower of salt.<br>I give my imagination up <br>like an underground cult <br>that gave its secrets away to everyone<br>like dark spots on the sun.<br> <br>And whatever beginnings <br>are behind me now<br>like things I'll never finish <br>I give my past and future up <br>to the omnipresence of time<br>in all I live today <br>as if something <br>were always coming my way<br>without expectation <br>from lightyears beyond my eyes<br>like letters from home <br>that never reach me <br>in time to call me back.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">If I have shone among luminaries <br>like a firefly in an ice palace <br>of radiant chandeliers <br>that froze in their own tears<br>it was as a small lighthouse <br>on the coast of turbulent mirrors<br>that kept a nightlight on.<br> <br>I spent the gone on the going <br>and trusted the darkness <br>to keep things flowing along<br>like a river coming down a mountain <br>without knowing about the sea<br>that summoned me to the lowest place<br>like an unfathomable watershed <br>in every eye of the fountain <br>that cried out to the birds<br>in words that feather the dead<br>for their long flight through the mystery <br>I am I am I am<br>the future memory <br>of my own prophetic history <br>before I wrote it down<br>like the path I took <br>on my way out of town.</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=476865" data-title="So Far Down This Road de Patrick White" data-description="So far down this road 
without a destination 
my childhood doesn't 
recognize me anymore.
So far into this life 
I've never been outside of
I can speak to myself
 in a foreign language
that no one can understand 
as if it were the ancient dream-gr..."></div>
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