Black Dog Tides

In the river, in her mind
tides surge and push, upwards and outwards
with slow and melancholy strength
denying constraints.
Irresistible.

Mile wide Severn, grey- brown power
carries tugs and barges
to dock at Sharpness
before the ebb tide.
Safe home.

On the bank a woman waits
submerged within depression’s waves,
maelstroms of silent despair
strain and pull at tenuous moorings.
She listens.

A Siren seductive sings.

“Let me hold you, comfort you,
your cares your torments let me take them away,
come to me, lie with me, to hold you forever.
I am turning now, turning.
Back to the sea.”

She stood, contemplative, slowly at first
but then with purpose, went to her suitor,
slid and slipped on the great black banks.
A soft mud road
to hardened certainty

At the water she stopped, hesitant, doubtful
for a time, then turned away.
She went back from where she came,
Why or why not, unknown.
Unexplained.

But tides will turn,
and the river again will sing its Siren song.

Note .“Black Dog” was what Winston Churchill called the depression he suffered in the 1930’s when he was isolated politically and under severe pressure financially. I do not know whether that name originated with him or someone else.