On the Beach

ON THE BEACH As a prisoner misses the cell after countless years inside Or a near-death experience reappears in dreams Quelled feelings come and go like the tide Experience long gone still flows in mind streams The flotsam and jetsam of a life wrecked May appear on the beach at tide’s low ebb When defences are down and we do not expect To meet them again mid the strands of life’s web For the past has not passed, but remains in the now: Streams of consciousness tumble uncontrolled And flood themselves into the overflowing scow Of the mind - old and cold, they fill the hold. There can be no present on free dry land Without an end to the past of shifting wet sand