Fortnightly Poem 10.B (Karen’s)
My rather indulgent contribution this week is a cat poem, Yes I know you either love them or hate them ,but hopefully if you are in the latter category you can still enjoy the poem. This is a poem written after the euthanizing of one of my cats, Noodle (or ‘Cloud’ - my sister’s name for her). Unlike my other cats who lived till well into their twenties, Noodle was only 10 and died of cancer. It was the first time I had to intervene.
Cloud (for Noodle December 4 2014}
Scruffy white short-hair with your fine possum tail, you chose us.
I never liked white cats… but those surprise stripy spots, and that tail…
You won me, reluctant (I already had two) sad little creature pleading
through bars, and I should have spent money on school plodding shoes…
It was all a disguise, you had Persian genes, your haughty demeanour,
your entitlement, you sprawl at my feet, flaunting your belly— Well…?
But no blue blood indifference, so very loving
your paws around mine, whenever I held you, even that last time
on the way to the vet, when I knew as I carried you
up to the car, you’d never see home again. Fuck, I’d dug the hole.
Driving you alive, your fate in my hands, and that hole I had to prepare
waiting …I cried my goodbyes:
Goodbye gentle Noo
Noo of the relentless poddling— kneading, needing
Stair winding, (not tripping, just testing)
Garden companion—
Dust rolling , sprawling- and you still stayed so white!
Noo of the sudden appearance
Of course I’m here, I just don’t come when I’m called
Of the elegant draping over verandah ledges
Tail an upside down question mark –Who me?
She picked the indifferent, allergic, the hostile
determined to win them, wouldn’t take no…
The ever so gentle, morning tap on the face
I’ve been ever so patient and it’s already five…
Noo, sometimes ‘Cloud’, you are now floating free
of the pain of this world. You’ll have your own cloud
dream-soft and moon-white, lazily drifting…
My cloud-spirit, my Noo