A Meerkat In The Lounge Poem by Gert Strydom

With great speed a thing runs
into the lounge
and braids past a bookcase
with aunt Leen behind it.

“Your cats are too useless
to catch the rats, ”
she says without breath

but they are chased out,
having to stay outside
and one sleeps at night
in a room at the garage
and the other I smuggle
into my study, my bedroom
and of this fact till now
she luckily bares no knowledge.

I go and fetch the black and white housecat Felix
from the outside,
who is a great mouse hunter,
but he isn’t interested and walks out
and this makes her angrier still
and I find it very amusing
and start to wonder
what kind of beast we are dealing with
that is now hiding behind the bookcase?

I get the striped ginger Persian cat Musso,
who sometimes brings big grasshoppers, mice,
rats, lizards, birds and even snakes
as tokens of love
to get a turn
and he sniffs around at the bookcase
but although he is curious
he doesn’t want to fetch the thing
that is hiding there

and I carry him to one side
to stop it or to catch it
when it passes
and stir behind the bookcase with a broom
to drive it out.

A big adult meerkat
runs out with speed
and the cat goes for it
and jumps with arched back
and swishing paws

but like a big acrobat
that meerkat leaps right over the cat
and runs to the back of the organ
and the cat is angry,
but also anxious
as this thing
is dangerous for him
and he doesn’t regard it as prey.

When my aunt goes to another room
I get the two dogs, sneaking them in
as I am afraid
that the meerkat has rabies
and maybe it will bite me
and I move some of the furniture
for them to chase it out
or to be able to corner it somewhere,
if it doesn’t want to leave.

Jeanie the brown Labrador growls
and regards this as a great game
and Sasja
the smaller golden Cocker Spaniel
tries to get her turn
and they chase it to and fro

and Sasja bites at it and it bites back
and I have to protect the furniture from them
and fortunately the three of them run out
and the dogs want to mangle it
but the meerkat disappears into a hole
and the dogs growls and howls
and comes back later to report with waving tails

and at that moment
my aunt returns to the lounge
with her tongue hitting like a whip
stating that dogs
are not allowed in the house
and asking if I am too incapacitated to catch a rat?

I know that she is half deaf
and wonder
if she is turning blind as well
as her rat, is certainly a meerkat
and nothing else
and now she even calls it a skunk.


[Reference: Meerkat is a small animal similar to a suricate.]