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A Prayer for Disquiet All is there, only I am no more, all is still there, the fragrance of rain in the grass, as I remember it, and the sough of the wind in the trees, the flight of the clouds and the disquiet of the human heart. Only my heart's disquiet is no longer there. -The Dead One (Den Döde) by Pär Lagerkvist from Evening Land (Aftonlund) translated by: W.H. Auden and Leif Sjöberg, Wayne State University Press, 1975. Lord, there is a restlessness stirring within me for which I implore your aid in settling. This feeling stems not from a dissatisfaction with my current whereabouts, for there is no other place to which I would rather go. Curiously, this uneasiness arises naturally from within me, as easily as milk flows from a nursing mother. There is a purity to it that originates from both within and without. This disquiet sounds a silent alarm, reverberating endlessly in the microscopic spaces between my bones and my flesh. It is no less than a warning, a warning that the confluence of dynamics, which have led to the state of the universe and to the roles of all living organisms who roam or scurry or burrow inside it, seems terrifically misguided, utterly at odds with my own internal compass, at best, unpalatable. Such also is the perception of the insane, of those who reject reality as unsuited to their needs, who craft alternatives accessible to none but themselves. Lord, I have no more desire to share in the lot of the insane than I do to engage this world on the unpleasant terms in which it is presented. Forgive me, if, faced with this dilemma, I stew, in a manner that brings neither of us satisfaction or relief. |
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A Prayer for Disquiet David Keffer Knoxville, TN October 14, 2014 |