Poems From Providence - The Poet's Press

Any day now, she will cross over
into the crystal dream of unbeing,
stalking the perimeter of organic life,
sublimating from neuron to ghosthood.
It is a fitting vigil. She taught me this.
On those rare days when I would pause,
to sit inert and motionless,
she’d pad toward me in bristling alarm,
leap on my lap, creep up my chest,
place her cold nose to my nostrils
to check for my breathing,
tapping my cheek with her padded paw
as if she knew that life is motion,
that there is not a moment for idleness
between the two abysses that punctuate
the brief pincushion of consciousness,
that even sleep is an exercise,
a boundless leap, a chase,
a love affair where everyone
says “Yes” and does it again,
that imagination is motion, too —
It is said that animals know little of death,
yet this venerable cat must sense it,
the creeping twilight in her veins and limbs.
She will not cease moving with joy,
she will try to continue,
the poem of her purring
a motor perpetual, her Siamese talk
longer than the tale of the Nibelungen.