Changing Tides
"Your ears are the ocean,"
my friend said,
and I imagined the wash of waves
erasing the auditory footsteps
hanging like fading dreams
in the clear morning light of the seashore.
Imagined the sea cascading
into my bedroom,
curling round me like a lover's arms,
hushing and shushing
and rushing my mind
out of my head,
and into some serene sleeplessness.
What I hear in my ocean ears
are screaming gulls,
the lumbering of land mammals,
people passing on some distant journey,
while I watch the sunlight drag itself up my wall
before vanishing entirely.
I am bad company.
I have not bathed in days,
so immersed am I
in the narrow bathtub of my brain.
The world washes by outside.
The swallows building a nest on my porch have a purpose.
I have only an unblinking gaze,
as the sunlight swoops ever faster
across my wall.
I imagine a storm
tearing me from my bed,
ripping me with cold rain,
thundering and electrifying
my ocean ears.
I imagine having the energy to scream.
What I want is to hear the wash of waves
and nothingness in my ocean ears.
I want to lie in a primeval peace
and reflect the sky -
feeling the breathless blue-white of the day
chase clouds across the tides,
staring into the black of midnight
at every space between the starlight,
and listening to the breath of flowing life
with my ocean ears.