A Roots’ Disease
We feel lost—
ever more confounded
each time the turn arrives,
when winters drive summers off
and autumns are missing.
We grow intolerant
of what has brought us up—
light, gloom, cold, heat, rain, drought;
we find fault with everything around us
and even take it out on the shortening days.
All disturbs us—
above all our shadow
when we happen to observe it;
we finally blanch and run empty,
weary of all we are and have
and eager for something unidentified.
Lost in dreary days
as well as in sunshine,
as if we had never belonged there—
alien to these places and these seasons.
Day by day each year more and more.
The Madman’s Cry
The madman is shouting—
alone, at the center of the world.
Listen to the madman’s cry—
seeing him at the center of the world,
you, by the world astounded;
you who really think him alone,
a mad shouting because of the world.
Listen, and his cry won’t be in vain.
Listen, and the world will lose its center,
its center will turn to the whole again.
The madman you think you know,
and the one you surely don’t—
their cries burst out in unison.
No longer because of the world,
but apparently causing the world.
The madman’s cry—
like a prayer from the mouth of God.