One night, a certain man was lying in bed, grinding his teeth and weeping hot angry tears. The whole of his body was clenched tightly as one closed fist, and in his Mind’s eye he formed the one he hated. Then a Messenger came to him, and he cowered from its light, and the Messenger said to him,
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Turn again, thou son of man,
Turn and I shall bathe thy sores
And wash thy wounds
And bind thy broken bones.
For thou art bent by this broken world,
And being broken, ache the more break it.
Hurt by the living, thou hast fled to the dead.
To the darkful gloom of looming shadows.
Where sound is swallowed by stones and stars
And a silence unconquerable reigns.
And what does it say of thee,
O son of man,
If the living are so far off,
And the dead so close at hand?
Why lock thyself in dark imaginings,
Nursing the worms that wriggle
And writhe inside thy wrathful heart?
Why turn eternally on thy axis,
As the Cherub's sword that guards the gate?
As dread Saturn revolving in the outer darkness
Around a star of anguish?
To take time most miserable
And more miserable make it.
A sinking man needs saving,
And to be saved a man must sink.
But needs and musts mean nothing to thee,
O son of man,
Sunk in the open grave of thy heart
And locked sepulchre of thy brain.
For thou art in need of saving
But scorn the act of being saved.
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