Change in the Weather
I sit beside myself on the steps,
outside the door.
The in-coming front blows the trees--
red at the top, graduating to the lower leaves, yellow-green--
the air chills and one can feel the pressure change,
less oppressive as the next system asserts itself.
The cats in the yard are aware,
though that awareness is evidenced only
in a certain sharpness of attention.
A new cat enters the scene, white and lithe,
on a ladder leaned conveniently against the garage,
descends one or two rungs clumsily
before plunging the few remaining feet,
then over to investigate the goat,
and up to a different roof.
A sort of investigative dialectic.
The goat urinates and the cat is gone.
Magic* lies in the grass, resting,
breathing regularly as she watches the activity
in the next yard.
Her ears twitch when sounds stop
and when they start.
The white cat has returned,
scoping out the goat from the roof,
eyeing her from above.
It now stands above the goat who
seems unaware, or at least unconcerned.
I am here; she is safe.
The cat is gone.
Magic lies in the grass.
Her ears do not twitch.
She is asleep and her breathing is regular.
*Magic was one of our cats at the time; a big, root-beer barrel of a cat;
a stray we started feeding until she adopted us.
Next Poem in Sequence
Back to Table of Contents
Doc Yoder's Home