Metamorphoses and Mood Swings


Sometimes I am Byzantine, winged
and intricate as an insect
with many jointed legs,
hard and jeweled as a beetle
soft as a moth.
Sometimes I am sad, muddled
and formless, tired and full of rain.                                                                          
My tears flow endlessly down,
a salty river,
where, like a new Ophelia,
I barely keep afloat,
and nothing can reach me.
Sometimes I fly, like a steel
needle, through air clean
and sharp as a cut, I feel
everything at once, I am elbow deep
in trees, their leaves caress
my face, and I can feel their roots
curl in the earth.
Sometimes I am too fast
for anyone to catch, I can do
and do more than I ever
could before. I go beyond
the need for sleep, inventing
unusual uses for every hour.
And sometimes I am far too tired
to be anyone, to walk or speak
or think. So I shut down
and send them all
home with a note
that I won’t be back until the next
resurrection.

This poem was included in the inaugural issue of “Incandescent Mind”