A catbird scolds a feral cat: harsh, descending Nos. Slick with dew, the lanceolate leaves of goldenrod shimmer in the sun like green fish.
cats
6/11/2011
Dead bracken leaf: a sun-bleached carcass. A feral cat pads down the road undetected by squirrels, its sodden gray coat the color of gravel.
4/23/2011
Four gray squirrels interrupt their chasing to scold the feral cat—a Two Minutes’ Hate. In the corner of my eye, the zip of a winter wren.
3/13/2011
On the flattened grass where snow has sat for months, the gray disk of an old hornet nest. The feral cat presses her belly fur to the earth.
1/18/2011
Fine snow blurs the edges of the porch. The feral cat has walked in her own footsteps through the garden, a clear print in each old crater.
5/28/2010
The first four peonies burst their buds in the night and open to a sky of hazy pink. From under the house, a cat’s hollow cough.
2/2/2010
My meditative sit is spoiled by the incessant scolding of a squirrel, set off by a feral tabby. Now I know why Nanzen killed the cat.
11/21/2009
A half-grown barn cat crawls out from under the house, gray and bedraggled as a clump of drier lint. One jay rasping at the top of a locust.
6/4/2009
The black cat crouches at the edge of the meadow full of dame’s-rocket. What hides, squirmed into grassy burrows, under all that purple?
4/14/2009
4/10/2009
3/13/2009
11/16/2008
4/3/2008
The feral cat is back from wherever it goes for the winter. It crouches on a fallen limb, eyes fixed on the weeds, gathered for the spring.