Written as a letter to two friends, this poem describes a sleepless night of thunderstorms on a mountaintop. The speaker is woken again and again by close lightning, then sits on the porch with black coffee, tired but oddly calm. The dark and the roaring rain seem to excuse him from seeing and listening, while each flash is almost painful, too quick for his eyes to adjust.
He then tries to write in a pocket notebook without light. Later, he finds the lines tangled together, words piled on words. He jokes that the flashes weren't "of insight," and the odd images he jotted down, like the Ark of the Covenant and talking drums, don't explain themselves. "I am a cipher to myself" is the poem's honest, half-amused admission.
The mood is drowsy, wry, and intimate. Beneath the humor sits a thoughtful point: waking up, and understanding yourself, can't be hurried. The relief of the final line feels small and real.