Ah Elizabeth another year without you

Without your lovely grin, your ability to download photos at the speed of light, without your found images on the walls of the your room, without you carefully groomed fingernails and your ability to be friends with males.  You were  passionate about Harry Potter and the Golden Compass.  When you dove into a book you wouldn't come up for air until you had to eat or starve.  You let the book consume you as you consumed it. 

I loved reading on the porch with you toe to toe, you and me, lazing in the summertime, lost in our own thoughts, nobody breathing down our backs with some deadline.

You and I would sometimes walk along the railroad track to the one mile marker, then skid down the sooty bank to the river below where its clear shallow waters took us down stream and we could float on our backs and watch the birds.  Sometimes there would be an eagle, or the merganser ducks who swam in packs herding their little ones into the shallows where they could dive for minnows.

You were a great swimmer.  You were good company, funny and bright and stylish. 

Sometimes after the cat has eaten his fill he walks around howling.  I call this his postprandial howl.
I think that he is calling for you.  Can you hear him?  It is a soulful howl, and it says what I feel, left here to navigate without you.

Scooter, August 2010

The nestling fell

The nestling fell from the tree near the back porch just about dawn.
My cat who visits me in my lap
and looks at me with sweetness and dependence and gratitude
burrowing his snout into my hand as I pet him,
that creature snapped up the nestling and carried
him in his mouth proudly, his tail swaying like
a victorious pennant.

After much subterfuge
we got him to open his mouth
and the nestling fell out.
Of course it could never be the same.
His mother in a proper outrage
screamed a full five minutes
a single harsh note over and over again

I love life
just not my life
that goes on without her

The days begin today for instance
with perfect clarity
the sky blue, the water tower
across the street puncturing the blue
with its pointed tip.
But she is still gone
and tonight my last thought before
turning out the light will be
still gone.