Goodbye Howard

We know you have other homes...

While waiting in the tire store, I pulled out a copy of A Thousand Mornings by Mary Oliver. When I came to “Goodbye Fox,” I was overcome by a memory of one of my many cats, and the last time I saw him. I was so anxious that I’d lose the words flowing in my brain, I panicked at the lack of a notepad or paper. There next to Mary’s poems, though, were blank pages, as if she were inviting her readers to write their own poems. How could I mark up this book with my scribblings? Ah, to hell with it, challenge accepted, and I jotted down this tribute to a big orange cat.

Photo by Louis Droege on Unsplash

Goodbye Howard

We know you have other homes --
	the one across the street
	one down the hill where raccoons live
		they tell me you join them 
		for dinner sometimes.
Then there’s one -- or maybe more
	up the hill a mile away.
I saw you trotting across the road
	in that direction
A cat on a mission!

You are the only cat there, aren’t you,
Not surrounded by surly queens.

Yet I was surprised when you
	jumped on my lap
	and licked my cheek.
Then you trotted toward the cat door
	looking back only once when I asked,
	“Was that a kiss goodbye?”

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You can read more from Sue Cauhape on her page, “Ring Around the Basin”:

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