Poet Vargus Pike told me that a person who has written a poem is a poet. As I’m pulled more and more into writing (thinking, humming, singing) cat poetry, I have to wonder if that’s true. When I think of a poet, I think of someone with the arcane ability to set words perfectly, supra-perfectly, in such a way that a picture emerges, all senses engaged. I have no illusion that my rough-hewn cat poetry falls into that class . Still to me, they are poems, so perhaps I am a poet after all.

EVENING

Quiet now.

The grooming done.

The running done.

The m’rowing done.

The racing and chasing,

done.

 

I cannot resist

the whiskered cheek,

the striped fur.

I touch;

he wakes, stirs, purrs,

then settles again

into the landscape of

kitty dreams.