Sunshine, Joan’s therapy cat, sometimes sleeps
With us, sometimes not. Untrammeled, he roams
About, guards the gates, makes prodigious leaps
To pace my desk, secure his turf at home.
The other day, at dusk, I watched him, pressed,
Absurdly still, on our front walk, intent,
Focussed, feline energy invested
In a tiny bird, innocent portent,
Perched on our front gate. Never have I seen
A creature so like stone. Not even breath
Disturbed that psychic tension, that fierce force—
Cosmological—presaging prey, death.
The bird flew off; Sunshine, coiled, too late, hurled
Himself. Writ small: the hist’ry of the world.
(10/1/08)