Tuesday, March 21, 2017

In Honor of National Poetry Day and Poetry Wednesday: Billy Collins





The Order of the Day 


A morning after a week of rain
and the sun shot down through the branches
into the tall, bare windows.

The brindled cat rolled over on his back,
and I could hear you in the kitchen
grinding coffee beans into a powder.

Everything seemed especially vivid
because I knew we were all going to die,
first the cat, then you, then me,

then somewhat later the liquefied sun
was the order I was envisioning.
But then again, you never really know.

The cat had a fiercely healthy look,
his coat so bristling and electric
I wondered what you had been feeding him
and what you had been feeding me

as I turned a corner
and beheld you out there on the sunny deck

lost in exercise, running in place,
knees lifted high, skin glistening-
and that toothy, immortal-looking smile of yours.


courtesy of The Writer’s Almanac

Wednesday, March 8, 2017

Poetry Wednesday: A Small-Sized Mystery



A Small-Sized Mystery

Leave a door open long enough,
a cat will enter.
Leave food, it will stay.
Soon, on cold nights,
you’ll be saying “excuse me”
if you want to get out of your chair.
But one thing you’ll never hear from a cat
is “excuse me.”
Nor Einstein’s famous theorem.
Nor “The quality of mercy is not strained.”
In the dictionary of Cat, mercy is missing.
In this world where much is missing,
a cat fills only a cat-sized hole.
Yet your whole body turns toward it
again and again because it is there.


by Jane Hirshfield
courtesy The Writer's Almanac