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<div style="background:#fff;border:#bbb dashed 1px;padding:5px"><a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=476959" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><div style="margin:10px 0"><strong>There Are Masks</strong></div><div style="margin:10px 0">There are masks I will not wear, <br>	backstage wardrobes I won't dress up in, <br>		lives someone else can star in, <br>fires that will never feather my voice, <br>	or sweep the shadows <br>		from my palace of ice and eyes, <br>faces that will never hang like fruit <br>	from any bough of my being, <br>		daggers I won't bury in the wounds <br>they inflicted like mouths <br>	the tongue has been cut out of, <br>		dignities of desire <br>that will not circle the roadkill, <br>	my wings linked to the foodchain.<br>		My heart will never labour <br>like the ox of a bell under a yoke, <br>	though I plough the starfields; <br>		nor will I fill its rivers <br>with leeches and eclipses <br>	and let it sip the blood of others<br>		to nourish my own lust. <br>I will not smudge the clarity of my heat <br>	with greenwood, not sacrifice <br>		the hawk's eye for the ant's, <br>cloud the integrity of love with acrid reason.<br>	I will not eat the days <br>		like spoonfuls of my own ashes, <br>a martyr to my own orthodoxies, <br>	trying to be true to a creed of fire <br>		that moves underground like a root-fire <br>in a choir of cedars, the forbidden flame <br>	smouldering, trying to bite its own tail, <br>		trying to put itself out with its own tears <br>for the best of reasons, <br>	for lost earrings in a coffin. <br>		Anyone can see <br>you're a raven worthy of silver <br>	who's roofing her wings with tin, <br>		an urgent orchid with flare<br>trying to bloom in the shadow <br>	of a nightshift toy factory.<br>		Your wingspan <br>should be measured in horizons<br>	from dawn to dusk; and you<br>		free to ride your own thermals, <br>to slide yourself like a theshold or a love-letter<br>	under the door of the wind, <br>		to take the hood off your sky <br>and explore your own vastness, <br>	all the bridges you built <br>		to lie in the shadows <br>of the burning cherry trees, <br>	true to your own emergency, <br>		true to your own fingertips and eyes, <br>the impulse of the serpent at the gate<br>	who whispers to you like skin<br>		when the candles go out, <br>who comes to you like water to a witching wand<br>	a root-god to the poppy <br>		that shudders with black lightning <br>to be consumed like a torch in her own flames, <br>	to drown in the black rose <br>		of an exquisite oblivion, <br>naked in a moist parachute that blooms<br>	like a smile you'd thought you'd lost.<br>		The butterfly can't be <br>stuffed back into the cocoon, <br>	the bird back into the egg, <br>		the pearl back into the grain of sand <br>that grew a palace <br>	out of the tiniest foundation stone.<br>		Fire is not a flower of ashes<br>that sheds its petals twice<br>	There are roads that disappear<br>		like stray threads of hair <br>over our shoulders<br>	even as we walk them, <br>		every step farewell and arrival, <br>as time yeasts the envelope <br>	with crucial stars that make things happen, <br>the wheatfield of an autumn letter <br> in the loaf of the hollow mailbox<br>	rising like dawn out of a dark mouth<br>		over its own harvest.<br>You can't live forever like a sentence<br>	balked at the fang marks of the colon <br>		you can't remember biting you.<br>Because life is not punctuated <br>	any more than space, <br>		things will follow <br>the promise of the serpent's tattoo<br>	to die back into life, <br>		the black lioness <br>of your passionate constellation, <br>	not a nun at the stake<br>		of a forbidden lust to live, <br>but a new moon at the opening gates<br>	of the parenthetical secret <br>		between two crescents. <br>Are you afraid <br>	to let your life graze like wild horses<br>		on the grasslands <br>of your own transformations, <br>	do you desecrate a greater law <br>		to obey a smaller; <br>would you tie your last lifeboat, <br>	your last island full of moonlight <br>		to the sunken pillars of a wharf<br>that aged like a palace, <br>	 an endless prelude <br>		to a book of farewell <br>that collapsed under the weight <br>of its own hesitation<br>	to read itself to the end? <br>Even now your foundation-stones <br>	are turning into quicksand <br>		and the abyss <br>of what you must jump into <br>	to follow your wings<br>		out of the barnyard <br>opens like a mouth <br>trying to clear a wishbone <br>		or a song from its throat.<br>Are you afraid <br>	to give up your collection of hats, <br>		those skies and overturned nests you walk under, <br>a hawk behind chicken-wire <br>	for a bough in the wild <br>		without a return address? <br>I want to hear the nightbird sing <br>	that dazzles the serpent <br>		with the joy of her own being, <br>slowly ascending the tree like a stairwell <br>	to seize her in the dark rapture <br>		of his amorous coils<br>and drown her in tide after tide of transfiguring wine, <br>	the secret oceans of bliss <br>		that lie hidden <br>in every dropp of blood, every tear <br>	that falls from the thorns <br>		of the black star that burns like a rose<br>in the mouth of the dragon <br>	that is waiting like wings <br>		at her bruised heel <br>for her to wash off the old mythologies, <br>	naked in the eye of the rain, <br>		and mount the taboo and eclipse <br>of her own repealed desire <br>	and fly from the graveyard firepits <br>		of the grounded comets <br>praying for a match in hell <br>	to light the pyres of their own cremations. <br>		Ill omen or good, <br>the brush is loaded with red, <br>	with roses, blood, fire, <br>		and the sky is primed <br>like the virgin seabed of the canvas before you. <br>	Staring will not paint the apple <br>		you want to bite into, <br>install the serpent like a voice <br>	in the tree that tempts you, <br>		run the fingers of the nightwind <br>through your raven hair like a mad pianist<br>	trying to tune your keyboard <br>to the crazed scales of the full moon.<br>If you want to dance naked <br>	under chandeliers of black cherries, <br>		alive enough to get away with yourself<br>don't turn your eyes to glass <br>	and scan the heavens <br>		like the small end of a telescope <br>to see if you can spot your own approach <br>	like an astronomical catastrophe<br>		that will burn the house down, <br>the matchbook flaring of a coffin <br>that docks like a death-boat <br>		to take on a cargo of ashes; <br>but lay down one stroke of paint, <br>	risk your own interstellar spaces once, <br>		leap like a wounded dolphin<br>from the wave of the mirror once, <br>	and life will strew stars in your path<br>		that will awake the dreamer<br>like gardens in the furrows <br>	of your salted fields. <br>		You will stop living <br>like an arsonist in a volunteer fire-brigade <br>	before the blaze of your own hunger <br>		for heat and light<br>and run like a sudden thaw of honey <br>	from the frozen hive <br>		that wants to ride its own melting <br>like a forge pouring out the hot metals <br>	of the enchanted swords <br>		the dark magicians plunge into the stone<br>to sort the jesters from the crowns.</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=476959" data-title="There Are Masks de Patrick White" data-description="There are masks I will not wear, 
	backstage wardrobes I won't dress up in, 
		lives someone else can star in, 
fires that will never feather my voice, 
	or sweep the shadows 
		from my palace of ice and eyes, 
faces that will never hang like frui..."></div>
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