I promised to begin looking at the years when I was most sick with bipolar disorder, the most symptomatic.  During part of that time, I attended a day treatment program for the chronically mentally ill and wrote the following poem about theat experience:

Day Treatment  (Poem #1)

It’s Monday and again

we sit in chairs, sprawled

against straight backs,

mid-morning group at day

treatment, talking about

black holes:

                fear of abandonment

                fear of non-being

the endless longing to return

plato’s parable about the cave

                the dark place

                the shadow

                the holy

                the horrible

                the hot coal

carried close to

each of us

so we are, all of us,

                always

                burning