Friday, November 26, 2010

Lost and Found -Oliver

In the marsh
Tall wheat grass blows
Cats and kittens onto
Streets. Onto gardens
Sunning themselves on back porches
Climbing onto high decked
One once peered down upon
A sitter through a bathroom
Skylight
Slinking, parading, skittering, running,
Birthing kittens, that appear
And in a connected glance
 Return to the marsh
To the tall wheat swaying
Returning after the hard rains fall
Picking delicately on the tops of
 Snowdrifts eluding kind hands
And open hearts in favor
Of the marsh spreading
Favors of feline freedom
Two of all queen and king of colony
Long ago trapped neutered released
Separate in color and courage
Come to feed to visit to enter a home now
And again, to seek and enjoy
Their brief encounters with humans
And return to rule the marsh
In the tall swaying grasses of wheat
And the kittens appear and disappear quickly
At night gorged raccoons appear, the imagined
Hint of kitten on their drawn lips
Kitten blood on their exposed teeth...
The kittens are taught early to avoid
 All contact, no matter how friendly,
All traps, no matter how humane,
Returning to the marsh
To the tall grass swaying...
If one should be seen, even inches long
It will be neither cute
Nor cuddly , truly a wild creature
Given to sibilant hisses and flat ears
Until one day a small meow
Almost a mirage of a meow
And there at the door, after the
Rain, tiny ball of ebon fluff
Emerald neoned eyes
That neither, ran, nor hissed
But stood tiny and waiting and
As the door opened
The mailman came stomping
Good naturedly, " cute kitten"
Said he to its disappearing...
Back to the marsh?
To the wild grasses swaying?
To the winter coming?
To the fattened raccoons?
And then moments later
As Kaitlin ran from fingers
Onto the screen, haunting
Haunted murdered innocent
Muse child
Came a mirage mewling
And there at the door again
Accompanied by the King of the Marsh
This ebon emerald fluff of spirit sown
And I bent slowly and lifted this
"familiar" melted purring onto my breast...
Lifted this bit of soft marsh grass swaying
into the future of forever as this
Oliver twisted his way free from the
waiting jaws of predators and winter
unschooled and somehow innocent
 In the ways of wild
No mystical muse as simple as Kaitlin
A complicated fellow, as synchronized in
Temperament and spirit as a witch's familiar
Arriving, mystical, magical, lost and found
Releasing all negative energy
Bringing a stretching wheat swaying
Marshland of endless possibilities
Of life swaying with the faint
Perfume of salted grass
Flowing to the screen
Providing that simple unexpected twist

Oliver is home....
  

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