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.