‘Cyclothymia’ by Rachel Thomas

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All fruit is sweet as marzipan,
and seraphs carol just for me,
Each brook sings like a silver lyre,
and finches trill in every tree.

Life is a cloth embossed with gold,
and even through the blackest rains,
No rainbow seems too hard to reach,
for ichor courses through my veins.

Those daedal thoughts flow thick and fast,
like honey from mosaicked hive,
The world’s a Garden of Delights,
I burst with joy to be alive.

And now it starts, the skyward flight,
slow at first, then gath’ring pace,
Just like a breathless fairground ride,
that sends  me whirling into space.

And on my climb to crackling sun,
I glimpse a gilded paradise,
That sphere aswirl with cherubim,
and full of riches without price.

But like hot-headed Icarus,
who thought that he would try his luck,
I, too, fly straight towards the sun,
and all my feathers come unstuck.

Now rainbows smash like Roman glass,
and splinters tinkle all around,
My head aswarm with twinkling stars,
as floating castles hit the ground.

That plump brocade I once called life,
Is torn asunder at the seams,
Now all  I wish to do is sleep,
and quench my thirst in Lethean streams.

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Rachel Thomas was born in a town near Bristol, UK, gained a degree in French and Italian from Exeter University, UK. She currently lives in Italy.