Prayer Of Pan Cogito – Traveller

Lord Thank you for creating the world beautiful and of such variety And also for allowing me in your inexhaustible goodness To visit places which were not the scene of my daily torments - for lying at night near a well in a square in Tarquinia while the swaying bronze declared from the tower your wrath and forgiveness and a little donkey on the island of Corcyra sang to mi from its incredible bellowing lungs the landscape’s melancholy and in the very ugly city of Manchester I came across very good and sensible people nature reiterated her wise tautologies the forest was forest the sea was sea and rock was rock stars orbited and things were as they should be – Jovis omnia plena - forgive me thinking only of myself when the life of others cruel and irreversible turned round me like the huge astrological clock in the church at Beauvais for being too cowardly and stupid because I did not understand so many things and also forgive me for not fighting for the happiness of poor and vanquished nations and for seeing only moonrise and museums - thank you for the works created to glorify you which have shared with me part of there mystery so that in gross conceit I concluded that Duccio Van Eyck Bellini painted for me too and likewise the Acropolis which I had never fully understood patiently revealed to me its mutilated flesh - I pray that you do not forget to reward the white-haired old man who brought me fruit from his garden in the bay of the island of Ithaca and also the teacher Miss Hellen on the isle of Mull whose hospitality was Greek or Christian and who ordered light to be placed in the window facing Holy Iona so that human lights might greet one another and furthermore all those who had shown me the way and said kato kyrie kato and that you should have in your care the Mother from Spoleto Spiridion from Paxos and the good student from Berlin who got me out of a tight spot and later, when I unexpectedly ran into him in Arizona, drove me to Grand Canyon which is like a hundred thousand cathedrals standing on their heads - grant O Lord that I may forget my foolish and very weary persecutors when the sun sets into the vast uncharted Ionian sea that I may comprehend other men other tongues other suffering and that I be not stubborn because my limitations are without limits and above all that I be humble, that is, one who sees one who drinks at the spring thank you O Lord for creating a world very beautiful and varied and if this is Your temptation I am tempted for ever and without forgiveness