Clouds

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R._N._Taber

As a child (born 1945) I was stroking a cat one day, happened to look up and could make out a cloud in the shape of a cat. I asked my mother what a cat was doing in the sky. She told me that cloud is a gauze curtain that takes many shapes through which God can see what we humans are up to on Earth. Rain, she added for good measure, is His tears because he rarely likes what He sees, especially when little boys misbehave.

I was very close to my mother. She was a very Christian woman, and although she was far from being one of those people inclined to inflict their own views on others, her words put me off religion forever if only because I did not like the idea of any God spying on me; nor did I much care for the implied threat that I should behave myself … or else. Even so, her words haunted me for many years as I grappled with various concepts of religion and God, eventually discarding both in favour of nature. Nature would offer the young (gay) man I became, a sense of spirituality that came free, no strings (or dogma) attached yet contained within the organised chaos of a time frame-cum-continuum to which the Muse in me could easily relate.

It took me many more years to even begin to articulate on that offer, but was happy to settle for the warm glow it awoke in me and the subsequent poetry it has never ceased to comfort, teach and inspire. Whatever our race, creed or sexuality, we are all but human and - where we like it or not - we are all in the swim of life together. 

This poem is a villanelle.

PHOTO: from the Internet

CLOUDS

Cloud cover

come another dawn

(like cats' fur)

All a-shimmer

(a lonely, weepy sun)

cloud cover

Quicksilver

heavens for everyone

(like cats' fur)

‘Live’ mirror

(humanity looking in);

cloud cover

Analogies

demanding our attention

(like cats' fur)

Fine promises

caught out on the turn?
Cloud cover

like cats' fur

Copyright R. N. Taber 1999; 2016

[Note: revised (2016) from an earlier version that appears in The Third Eye by R. N. Taber, Assembly Books, 2004; revised ed.in e-format in preparation.] 

Observations on the Human Nature of Cats

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R._N._Taber

When I was much younger (I was born in 1945) I used to play with a local stray cat that would cadge food, shelter, and affection from just about anyone, until it grew old and didn’t want to do much other than laze around yawning for much of the time.  Every now and then, though, it would throw me a knowing look as if to say, ‘I may be getting old, but I can still climb trees in my sleep. One day you’ll know what I mean.’

Yes, well, that cat never said a truer word…

[Photo from the Internet]

  

OBSERVATIONS ON THE HUMAN NATURE OF CATS

No feeble cat, I haunt people and places

I have loved, glimpse in smiling faces

a hint of pain and weariness but quickly

overcome by a strength of spirit

and zest for life, feeding me the same

though I am lost for words, cannot

name this feeling in me that puts a spring

in my step, clears blurred vision, warming

bones that have seen better days

Home cat, alley cat, pedigree, strayed,

pacing the same boundaries laid

when the appetite for territory strong

and I made my presence felt among

peers, not always for the best of reasons

it has to be said, but my seasons

well spent, better instincts no less reliable

for feeling my way when Top Cat disagrees

for seeing, sadly, through misty eyes

To each living thing, a time must come

to set the spirit free, surrender

all temporal claim to a body seen us

through good times and bad,

made grave mistakes, done us proud,

no undoing or (ever) going back, 
on chances given us to make amends, 
live and let live among old enemies, never
having to forgive old friends

Black cat, white cat, tricks of light;

tiger, tiger, burning bright…

Copyright R. N. Taber 2004; 2014

[Note: An earlier version of this poem (under the title Year of the Cat) appears in 1^st editions of The Third Eye by R. N. Taber, Assembly Books, 2004; 2nd (revised) e-edition in preparation.]