My Morning Cat Poem by Linda Hepner

My morning cat
Has watched all night
Keeping away the sprites
Who fight
Among the shadows,
Dancing shades, unseen
By human eyes,
Delighting themselves
To spike our fears
Disguised
As dusty swirls
In moonbeam motes,
A second here
Of air perturburation,
Half second there
Of ear disturbance,
My cat contains them all
All night
And as I wake
He calls All Clear
From beyond the doors
Briefly
Then serenades
"Good morning
Wake up, get up, don't forget
Me! Meow! "

He waits outside my room
Perched perilously on
The banister.
As I pass he makes a pass,
His sharp claw sting,
"Don't think that you
Can pass me by
And not say ‘Hi! '"
He waits, he knows
I have forgotten
Something, anything,
And sure he's right,
I turn, return to
Pick it up,
My glasses, phone, my pills, my mug
My mind.
Then we proceed:
He runs ahead
Downstairs
He eyes my slippers
I slip off
And tackles them like brothers
His Hemingway Six-toed brothers
While I pour his Friskies
Munchies
Crackies
Beef! Delicious breakfast beef!

Replete
All day he sleeps,
He has his spot,
Here is his plot;
We don't know where.
Here.


He rises in late afternoon
And joins me on my bed
For just another nap,
The light streaming
Through the dust motes
Onto us both
And suddenly the sun
Sinks and suddenly
Dusk begins.
He meows once, implies:
"It's time to say goodbye,
Good hunting, sun.
Now is the prelude
To my time, the night,
When once again
The devils you can't see
Are doing mischief,
But I'm here,
All night, all moonlit night,
To keep you safely sleeping,
You humans of one single life
Made up of light.
Bring on the night! "


LRH 11.2.14 For Figaro, my cat