On Retreat

I decided to lay in wait
for my next thought
to observe from where it arose
to thus see better how it was made,
determine its function, its duration
and its decay.

I waited and no thought came
despite my strong and thorough eye.
I cast a net, a searchlight, set a tripwire,
I even was a spy
who could not be seen looking
like on a streetcorner in Paris in 1940
with a poison-tipped umbrella
outside a small and dimly lit cafe.
But no one and nothing appeared.

I became angry
and called out the thought from its lair.
Step outside, I screamed.
I'd vowed never to be bullied again
as I was as a child, victim of Egghead
and the fist and the boot.
I am wiser and also prepared and unafraid now
to use brute force to overwhelm a foe.
Still, no thought came out, no response.

And by degrees I became more and more lost
as if I'd stumbled into the cavern
where the object of my efforts should be
but it was cold, barren, lifeless,
dripping with unformed and cast off liquid
which was once the bright and bilious world
of the mind above.
I became terrified, as I once had when I was very small,
my curiosity had taken me away from camp
and I could not find my way back.

Luckily I remembered that I was squarely grounded
upon my meditation cushion
and I beat a hasty retreat back.
This was something, I resolved,
to discuss with the master.