Summer Evening

The heat cools to comfortably mild.

I look out the front door

and see, on the top step,

my dear man taking the air

in his chair on the landing.

Our pantherish old black cat, Levi,

sprawls near him on the mat.

Tortoiseshell Freya is curled up neatly 

close by on the second step.

And there's me. I am sitting  

on the top step, leaning back

against the rails: positioned to see,

talk to and touch all three....

             *********

It's five years ago and more. 

All of them are dead now.

Even on such a pleasant evening

I never sit, these days, on 

the front steps, enjoying the air.


Sharing at Poets United's Poetry Pantry #388.

Featured by Sherry at Poets United in Poems of the Week: Furry Feline Friends We Have Known and Loved, along with poems by Toni Spencer and Susan Chast.

They Leave Themselves Behind

Walking down the hall, I see

through one door, Andrew 

at his desk by the window

(where the second bed is now)

pantherish Levi snuggled at his feet;

or glimpse Freya through glass

reclining outside in sunshine –

cats and man, all gone,

always remaining.

Written for dVerse quadrille #15: leaves / leave.

Featured by Sherry at Poets United in Poems of the Week: Furry Feline Friends We Have Known and Loved, along with poems by Toni Spencer and Susan Chast.

Again

‘Are you well?’ they ask. ‘You look tired.

Your energy seems a bit down.’

‘It’s August again,’ I don’t say,

and don’t add, ‘My “cruellest month” ’.

All those remembered deaths,

none of them old yet – and the new one.

It creeps up slowly, even though I think

I’m well prepared. I forget hollowness –

until it insinuates itself, again, inside

my bones, my veins, the cavities of my gut.

The empty spaces in me, which are me, are

microcosms of the great spaces in the world

left by your unique absences: holes that can’t

be refillled. Can’t ever. But the weeks pass

again, and I move again past your passing,

your several passings, as I did each first time.

Perhaps it is as well, my dears, you die in August

or the first edge of September, or the last day in July.

The Spring arrives again, the world looks up

and thrives, filling itself with life, that starts anew.

And my life too goes on. So far. Of course

I feel myself immortal, as we all do – as you did

(most of you). But now again it’s August.

I don’t go out much, get dressed late.

I buy myself wine and chocolates

and romantic DVDs; indulge alone.

And nothing fills the hollow, lights the dark….

‘I’m fine,’ I say. ‘Just busy.’ Again and again.

Written in response to Voices, Spaces & Songbirds at 'imaginary garden with real toads'.

Sevenling (My Favourite Music)

Nothing made Freya happier
than to snuggle between Andrew and me,
purring all night in deep rhythm.

Later, when Andrew and Freya were gone,
Levi would curl up next to me and purr.
Now he too has left me; they are all gone.

My new cat is wary, and shares the bed silently.


Yes I know, comparisons are odious, and the new cat is gradually getting more trusting and affectionate. (She did purr the other night while sitting on my lap, as I wrote two poems ago.) I love her – and I still miss the others.

A sevenling for dVerse. We were asked to write about music.

Remnants

My new black cat

follows me into the kitchen.

She tries to persuade me

she is owed food.

I look at her rounded belly

and refuse. With only a brief glare,

she accepts this and strolls back 

to her chair beside the computer. 

She likes to be where I am. 

That is her safety, so far.

In the empty kitchen I see

my old black cat, who was with me

17 years. He is rattling cupboard doors, 

banging them one by one with his nose.

He knows it won't make them open;

it is a message to me, like prisoners

clanging metal mugs on a bench.

Other times, he sprawls on the spare bed

at the far end of the house. He doesn't need
proximity, to feel connected.












He is only here in my mind now.

My new girl cat

looks out through the flywire screen

at the front yard and the street.

Dogs bark. Other cats squall, fighting.

She stays indoors. I indulge her.

She looks out instead to the back garden:

a small space where nothing happens

except the growth of weeds.

Bored, she goes back to her chair.

I won't force the issue.

My last girl cat,

who was with me 16 years, 

wanders across the lawn

lifting her paws high and deliberately

out of the grass, like a dancer.

She is coming to greet me.

If I'm inside, she might well bring me

the fat corpse of a bird. 

Then I'll yell, and she’ll grip it 

and run back down the steps.

But she's only here in my mind, now.

Go to sleep, my children.

Dear visitors, time to leave once more,

until your next look in.

I will be here.

Dear newcomer, take the time you need.

We are neither of us young, but we have

whatever remains to be …
the whole of our lives.

Written for Day 16 of Poetry Month at 'imaginary garden with real toads' – about remains, remaining, or remainders.

Occasionally I Hear

Occasionally,

I hear the cat door clunk

and the pad of a paw come through,

but when I look up to greet him

he’s already here beside me,

my old boy. So I know

our girl who left us
last September

now nine months ago

still comes back to visit,

invisible — 

but I know what she looks like.

I'm linking this to the current Tuesday Platform at 'imaginary garden with real toads'. 

Ghosting

Sitting at my desk,

I feel the gentle flick

of a furry tail brushing my leg.

Both cats have always liked

to get my attention that way.

But the one who is still alive

lies across the room

in front of the heater.

He hasn't stirred all evening.

So I know who.

As I clean the kitchen bench

close to the time for cat dinner,

right above the spot of floor

on which that dinner is served,

I hear behind me a tiny mew.

I recognise it. Enquiry.

Encouragement. The nightly 

reminder (as if I would forget).

'Yes, babe,' I say,
'But you're dead.'

The End of the Day

Her happiest time of day is night:
bedtime, when she snuggles
and receives the caresses
that aren’t always spared
during busy daylight hours.
At some point she just decided
night was her cuddle time.

It’s a threesome.
When he and I draw apart,
she enters the space between us
and we both stroke her
as she purrs,
and purrs and purrs,
settling herself against us.

Funny little grey cat,
getting old, as we are —
she’s even more determined now
to have what she needs,
and she knows her needs.
She has grown ever more loving
as she ages; we have too.


8 Days of Happiness: 4 / Six Sentences

Letting Go of Difference

She’s been training us
now for years
to let go of the notion
that cats and people
have their own separate places.

We are tribe, she says,
we are herd.
Settles herself, insistent,
at bed or table,
defining them as shared spaces.

And as the years pass
we let go
more and more of difference,
of entitlement,
that ‘superior human’ stance.

Glad that this smart cat
and loving
has been willing to teach us
about connection,
we move with her now in that dance.


April PAD Challenge 30
Prompt: Letting go.
(The cat is Freya.)