Through the night I’m prey to a thought Its soundless clamour presses in on my ears I cannot close my eyes against the dark I pile up sandbags against the tide But it follows its own timetable, rises, Ebbs, and I alternately drown and surface. I’m normal, all quiet on the surface But underneath like a shark is the thought When the moon is dark it is exposed, rises: A craggy rock harsh and unchanged for years And I’m the rock, unaffected by the tide Of my affairs, visible even in the dark. It is full moon but my fears hide in the shadowed dark When dawn breaks the sun gilds only the surface I fly, I soar, I’m free of gravity, but I’m tied I’m pulled back, cannot break the tether of the thought I close my eyes, I numb my heart, I stop up my ears Yet like a drowned dead thing it rises. I have seen all this, I have seen many sunrises And I have seen every sunrise give way to the dark Now there is no music that is new to my ears In triumph and elation notes rise to the surface And fall again in tattered discord like a thought That was fresh in the morning, wilted by eventide. Time is the thread with which my memories are tied Sometimes I blessedly forget and my spirit rises For the thousandth time I’m free of the thought Only because there must be light for the dark The cycle has its own rhythm, I cannot see beyond the surface There is no time, life has its own plot, and so pass the years. Now the moon is full again, the months become years Now the moon wears away and I’m tied To its moods, and like the craters on its surface Are the scars on my mind, each time it rises Less eagerly, it knows it must return to the dark And like a saturated blotting paper take up the thought. Over the years I have watched this thought In the dark and when revealed by the tide And always it rises to the surface.