David Lewis Paget writes

The Mind Catcher

He waited until the Moon was high

And its beam shone on the sand,

Telling himself the time was nigh

He could overcome the land,

But everyone slept beneath the Moon,

Their minds were out of reach,

Except for the girl who stayed awake

And wandered along the beach.

Her mind was a well of confusion

There was love and there was pain,

She’d only done it the once, she thought,

But never she would again,

She thought of the sense of boundless joy

It gave when the love was there,

And how it crashed like a broken toy

When it gave way to despair.

And all the while he had watched the girl

From his vantage point on high,

Peering from his coal-black wings

In the dark of the evening sky,

Her thoughts he was carefully sifting

To glean what he could use,

‘What was this thing called love,’ he thought,

‘It must be a term of abuse!’

And then a panicky wave of pain

Had hit him out of the blue,

How could she feel such love again

When the pain came seeping through,

He tried to stop but he couldn’t block

She was too intense for that,

His wings were quivering, dark and shivering

Like a giant bat.

He tried to impress his mind on her

As often he’d done before,

But found that distress was more or less

What she was looking for,

She dumped her pain in the darkening sky

And thought that she saw some wings,

As he crashed into a raging sea

In wonder at what love brings.