Prayer

Between extremities
Man runs his course;
A brand, or flaming breath,
Comes to destroy
All those antinomies
Of day and night.
The body calls it Death,
The heart Remorse.
But if these be right,
What is joy?


(Vacillation, W.B. Yeats)

This morning, in the shower, I cried until my sides ached and my legs were weak and my throat hurt. Then I stopped crying. I walked Mabel. I had some coffee. I went to teach for a few hours. But my mind was churning.

Why is it that despite my intention, despite my desire, despite what I know will hurt, despite any instinct for self-preservation, and despite my experience, I still let past events eat away at me? And is my need to know why the thing that won't let me rest or give me peace? If I could just give up trying to understand, would I be healed? I want something that I can't have, I think. But what that something is, is the mystery. I wish I could no longer care about knowing. Then I would no longer feel the endless crush that weighs so heavily on me.

When I am feeling more hopeful I can tell myself that I am lucky to have had the chance to feel love so deeply, to have felt the flood of heaven fill the dual chambers of my heart and mind.

But now, A few moments later, my heart is breaking again for the thousandth time. This wound never seems to heal. If I could I would make you flat, strip away dimensions: first the actions, then the body, then the thoughts. Then you would be, for me, like a picture: beautiful, but able to be filed away as an artifact, something to glance at now and then in some small reverie. But you are inside me, part of my heart and mind that will never dissolve.

How did I get to this? For so long I was able to protect myself. I could walk away. Break a heart. I suffered, but the suffering was caused only by some kind of oblivion, a shield that kept real pain--this kind of pain--at bay.