Magnificent Cat (Part II)

You were a magnificent cat

a perceptive cat

A lovingly self-contained cat

a social cat

Who made herself

a kind and loving home.

You climbed the palm tree

to your satisfaction

(half way up)

And climbed down backward

thoroughly self-taught.

You climbed too the towering live oak

(wrapped in the porch)

all the way to the top

Every thick limbed branching

to their ends and back.

Dauntless bounding cat you were

from the railing

to the roof

Across then to the shed

and down fearlessly down again.

You wandered quietly afar

with a languid inquisitiveness

In the ease and curious stealth

of being sleek four legged and alive:

Quick agile a leaper and

a quiet feline stalker;

A groomer, a sleeper and

a Home Stone basker.

You were a phoenix set as a sphinx

shoulders and head held high

In a serenity of contentment.

Yes cat, at times you had

your nose thumped

And you even caught air

in twisting high arcs

Into the forgiving arms

of cushion and couch.

Yes, we talked in wordless cat talk

but we loved

And loved in deep trust

and loved in kindness well.

It may even be sad, the squirrel and bird

brought home from combats

To be shared in your huntress's pride.

But jai, the lizards grass and

forest edge sky

Were your dancing sunshine abode

etched with birdsong and breeze

Till the end of your happily content

too short; but,

Magnificence of days.

Jai Cici, jai you Magnificent Cat!

(10 March '17)

  [Written/finished the day

  'Magnificent Cat' returned

  home from her near eight

  week 'walkabout-got-lost'

  in the Flat Island Preserve;

  alive, underfed, feral,

  smelling of the dank musky

  earth and with a self-

  preservation hiss from hell.

  She was greeted by

  disbelieving humans and, a

  new resident alpha cat.

  Perhaps, more on all this

  later.]