Depression

Let no-one say this is mere reaction:

This is a silent, creeping catastrophe,

As compelling as any virus,

As irresistible as a triumphant army

Taking over the capital.

Now that being has become watching,

Pleasure, like a language

They tell me I spoke,

Has deserted me as finally

As memory leaves the old.

For energy, substitute depletion;

For capacity, an unending ability

To fashion another demon,

To shape another calamity –

The tidal wave coiling over the horizon.

Where you see sunlit vistas

I see dark omens of disaster;

Where you are buoyed by summer’s sounds

I am shrunken, alone, confined

With the unsayable sadness of birdsong.