Forgotten Ground Regained

Entreating a Sick Kitten

I was maybe eleven, a little like you are,Slight, apprehensive, and slow to catch on,When I pestered the lady who lived at the corner.Her husky stayed leashed in its hutch around back.She was portly and balding, and patient the morningsI crept to her stoop, to the creche where a catIn the warm, earthen emptiness under the stepsOf her tidy blue porch had just pushed out a litter.My change jar bought her a bag of kibble,And I waited and watched when she went to her daughter’s.The paper reprinted my proud little letter;It emphasized mercy for elders and strays.Pretending they brightened the teardown next doorWhere they gathered for Christmas, I gave them names,Saintly demeanors, and simple ambitions,Then I drew up their story all stapled and tapedIn a book to present to my baffled parents,My teacher’s suggestion. And just up the blockWere the scraps of a family. The father framed homes.He returned every night to a timorous wifeIn an overcome shack. Disheveled, their progenyRoamed off the premises, ragged and vacant.Not knowing who did it, the dog or the brothers,I knew those four kittens, and knelt for a look:A gray one, two tabbies, one tiny and blackWith a fine white tuft at the top of his chest.He looked like you. You look like him.Their heads were off, or hanging by fur,And their limbs were a mangle of leftover bones.I rode my bike home and I wrote no more storiesAnd minded my summertime safely indoors.
We all want the refuge of eight idle weeksBut the lingering wastes us. Go lunge at your sister.Explore past the kitchen and keep down your breakfast.Abandon your box and go bat at a spider.Be lighter of bowels, be bolder of purposeAnd nod off in sunbeams, and never go out.Let’s work out your poem: You pick yourself up.Your paws as you’re trotting will trigger a meter,Staggered and varied but steady of feet.When I lift you a little to leap on your own,We can look for deliverance in loftier matterAnd end the turn on an easy landing,No breathless inflection or flourish of rhyme,Just a practical phrasing that promises more.You hold the form. I’ll fake the rest.