Why light a way

Ursula

She doesn’t see the light and yet I still share it with her:
a large owl shaped vase bursting with colors, a string of bulbs
the perfect size to fill its belly and create bright eyes
that look at me tenderly without sorrow or pity.
Why light a way for a blind cat that is dying?
 
It’s all I can do today.
 
She walks into the room and quietly
waits for me to speak so she can move forward.
Her eyes still searching, her tail raises and she purrs.
She cuddles on my lap this is how I know she is changed:
not a lap cat, not a cuddler.
 
I hold her until I know she is done
her nature is to be solo and I place
her on a chair. She curls
into sleep, runs through dreams;

misses every wall.

~~M.E. Hope

"like ten tiny ostriches in the sand" *

After lunch today I listened in on a reading from Dublin (Ireland, not Ohio) for Poetry Ireland, A Celebration of Women Poets marking Brigid’s Day & Black History Month. Four poets I did not know, two American and two Irish. The readings were very good, fresh poems, a discussion midway through followed by more poems. A perfect dessert. Ursula curled up beside me and listened, the voices were soft and even so she didn’t mind the unknown women speaking. Just an hour, just a perfect hour.
 
Then I read a little news, a couple of opinion pieces about the new congresswoman from Georgia, Marjorie Taylor Greene. While I was reading, I was thinking how despicable I used to find Ronald Reagan, Bush Sr., then the Axis of Evil: George W., Cheney, Rumsfeld and Ashcroft, the hard-hearted who would withhold truth to move their ideas forward and the little worm, Newt Gringrich. He is one of the true architects of what has happened in GOP politics. We had the Moral Majority bullshit, the Tea Party weirdness, 45’s various cults and violence laden policies that fed and bred this whole Qanon/MAGA incoherency.
 
So, with those items floating in my head, Ursula purring softly and sleeping in her tuxedo PJs, I went back to poetry and reached for a book and read feet by Ross Gay. Here’s a quick shot from the first page of the poem. This poem is in catalog of unabashed gratitude, University of Pittsburgh Press, Pitt Poetry Series, 2015 and today’s title is from this poem as well.