POETRY CORNER
This is Gilly, so named as I found her as a kitten near ITT Gilfillan. She was so small, she fit inside a kleenex box. She’s walking the kitty clouds these days (Drawing – Lois P. Jones).
– 2/28/18
Hosted by Kathabela Wilson
With all the talk of the Year of the Dog, I began to wonder:
Chinese garden
at the entrance
who watches
stone guardian dogs
wishing for the cat yearThen I learned that in Vietnam they do honor the cat along with the rabbit! But in the more familiar Chinese zodiac there is no cat. I read that there was a story that the cat did not cooperate with the other animals in the cycle, so it did not have a year! But we all know how wise and sensitive cats are.
~ Kathabela
Tortie (Photo – Pris Campbell).
Giselle Maya
in our perched village
one cat tells another
if you are hungry
go to maya’s window sill
for some tasty crackerscat and i
surprise each other
one dashing down
the other up
the winding stairs
Giselle Maya, who lives in Provence, France, says: “My dear Tora tiger cat asked ‘when is the Year of the Cat?’ Tora is quite special to me: When a lady from Goult brought him over for adoption, he immediately sat on my knees & I heard a very soft purr.”
Ο Ο Ο
Taura Scott
bundled up
in stripes and fur
bouncing off walls
my little
foot warmer
Taura Scott, called Tanka Taura by her poet friends, lives in Pasadena and loves cats. She says: “Hmmm. Cats were so revered in ancient Egypt that they were buried with kings.”
Ο Ο Ο
Darla (Photo – Jean Sudbury).
Peter Jastermsky
the cat asleep
on her chest
the rest
of the morning
spoken for
Peter Jastermsky lives in Irvine, California. He says: “our cat, Frankie, has gotten
especially demanding and entitled, partly due to the cold weather. He must think this is the year of the cat and he is the cat the year is about!”
Ο Ο Ο
Susan Burch
after my cat’s death
I take the battery out of
my meowing clock –
if only it were that easy
to turn off my grief…
Susan Burch lives in Hagerstown, MD with her husband and daughter. She hopes the year of the cat will bring love, health, and prosperity to her family and friends.
Ο Ο Ο
Their names Rock & Roll,”we humans/ we do love our cats” (Photo – Mike Duffy).
Shrikaanth K. Murthy
playfully
the cat unravels
the yarn
you spun so smoothly
over the years
Shrikaanth K. Murthy lives in Birmingham, UK. He says: “Time itself is a cat- so playfully undoing a life’s worth of work. And yet here is no vindictiveness to it. New Years come and go, and the cat too, in that cycle.”
Ο Ο Ο
Pris Campbell
a cat howls
outside my window…
up all night
for different reasons
than when I was younger
Pris Campbell lives in Lake Worth, Florida. She and her husband have two cats who “showed up at our door…a few years apart,…and made it known that they intended to live with us. So for us it is always the year of the cat!”
Ο Ο Ο
Tabby (Photo – Pris Campbell).
♣ We welcome and encourage your response especially in the form of short poems. You may reply by leaving a comment below.
Some splendid poems here by some very special poets. Who doesn’t love a cat?
these are delightful poems, photos and beautiful drawing by Lois , Impressive!
THE SNOW CAT 28 February 2018
this very night we had a snowstorm here in Provence, a rare thing; my Tora tiger cat usually goes galavanting at night – he went out the cat door in spite of the snow, came back with a veil of snowflakes on his fur which i towel dried to loud purring sounds – in the morning i found only cat footprints in our narrow village lane – prints of a cat leaving and returning from our cat door — as for the birds who come for sunflower seeds, there was a layer of snow on the seeds. I awoke enchanted by the white landscape, the mountains my window sill, everything glazed by peony snowflakes . . .while the cat napped by the embers of the evening fire.
giselle maya
To me your theme looks like the year of the pussycat If we have hot dogs, how come we don’t have hot pussycats? lol
in fact in China the year which is the Year of the Rabbit in Japan is considered the Year of the Cat, i believe.
what a good idea dear Katha to choose the theme of the ‘Year of the Cat’, most interesting and enjoyable for the poet who loves cats and her/his cat especially! Merci for your work on this!