53rd view from a catscope

53rd view from a catscope

they whispered of me,
said i was a cat who’d
lost his way, couched
in winter comforts, wary
of the winds and the rains,
just a cat, they said who’d
lost his lust to ramble.
i bided my time on the
bed snug as a cockle shell
in the estuary mud, waited
the night when the clock
of stars chimed its
cold and dainty hours on
the moon’s wane mantel,
a breeze like a glimmer
of streetlight across
the channel, and i
slipped through the
creak of the cat door
as it lifted, and wended
through your sleeps the
streets i know as well as
the reach of my whiskers
true to the call of duck
and gull, true to the
tides returning.

riverside
july 23, 2019

The music is from a live recording of Bach – Cello Suite No. 6 in D major BWV 101 by Sergey Malov on a Violoncello da spalla for the Netherland’s ‘All of Bach’ project. Big Cat likes these rich tones.