R.C. Hedegard - Servants, Kings & Worms

There is a short story behind this collection. I will spare you most of the details, as it has been such an exhausting effort, with literally everything at one point or another going wrong. Instead, I will assert that I began seriously writing in the eighth grade. To keep a safe distance from my influences, I will not say here who they were. Nor will I divulge the identities of my key muses, the very real characters in my life who drew this reactionary material forth. I will say that writing, for me, is not a thing one sits and conjures, but rather, something that happens when it wills, something controlling its own destiny, something beyond even an author’s grasp. Although I am fond of these poems, I do not feel free to accept credit for the way they turned out, as I believe each piece wrote itself out of necessity; had I not been the channel, I feel certain someone else would have gotten to it in time. It was very clear to me as I moved my pen that the words could not have varied by even one syllable. And the outcome, the final outline, even down to the specifics of the divisions—every detail seemed to take shape before me as I watched with excitement. This collection held me captive to its dictation, and so it is exactly how it wanted to be, without even my own input. But I was there throughout the entire process, so I will try to explain how it all fits together.

There are in fact three books in what my files knew as one. “Servants, Kings, & Worms”, a single book, became for the sake of ingestion, “Servants”, “Kings”, and “Worms”, each word being a symbol for the walk of life from which those addressed themes were treated. They chronicle, sometimes in metaphors and sometimes directly, the major themes most human beings deal with, beginning with that first adolescent crush and ending with death. “Servants” is written from an aesthete’s perspective, that from the worldly and self-gratifying level of existence we are born into, based upon the fact that mankind is fallen, taking for granted that we are essentially corrupt. “Kings” is written from the level above, from where an individual sees his depravity and reaches out with whatever he can to liberate himself from it; it is the taxing part of living when man is at odds with his own nature, struggling vainly to be charitable and ethical, in an effort to elevate himself to productive goodness. It is then the lot of “Worms” to redeem the jumble presented by the earlier walks of life; this is where salvation through faith is received, adding the final dimensions to what partial truths were revealed throughout the years. The entire process is not unlike the search for humility, tenderness, and meekness. You may indeed find that the chapters directly parallel the search for love. Also, it is important to be aware that the three perspectives often overlap, giving glimpses of each in the others, as there is in our limited capacity to understand, no true and authentic embodiment in unadulterated form of any of the three symbols—only very near illustrations of them.

That is as well as I am able to explain this collection. It is very much its own entity; I release it from the confines of my overactive and alterable mind with a sigh of relief, as it has too long ruled over me. My half-hearted hope is that you might find merit in the total work—the three books combined—but, I must be honest, the significant accomplishment for me is that I am finally free to leave the confines of my own outline, free to live life no longer as a writer, but as someone who has written and survived it.