melissaahowells - You Taught Me...

*********
**********
*********

I found you in a tall bush
your stump of a tail quivering
whiskers burned off
some swill-whiskey-drunk-man had
put his cigarette out on your
wee striped face

you were not on my lease
but I felt compelled to take you in
I had to...
as if you were my
"no other choice..."
and eventually,
you became
my new reason to live

you taught me
what it was like
to be small, vulnerable
a fact
I'd forgotten
because it had been too painful--

the loud words and scolding worlds
of the universe are quite useless
aren't they,
my new little cat-boy?

small kittens
deserve patience
and an abundance of love--
even as mistakes and mischief are
as common together
as kittens born in the spring

patience,
I thought
ought to be
your abundance

the alcoholic neighbor
who lived on 2nd floor
caddy-corner from our front door,
(who once no holds-barred-wrestled his ex-wife
naked in the hallway)
told me :
"cats don't understand vitriol
no the contents of people-lectures..."

"but, they understand your tone,
abundantly,
so its best if you spoke
more kindly to your new kitten...
indulged him a little more...."

TLP, my little one,
better understood the sound of love
and of busy-ball toys
and proffered spoonfulls of vanilla yogurt
and dragging my dirty underwear out of the hamper
and lastly,
of unraveling unused rolls of toilet pape,
transforming them into
white confetti cloud formations

you relished too
in all the smelliness in my apartment
and in smelling me up...
and how you moved in to my life...

at first you nuzzled in
near my feet
then you claimed my right fleshy hip
eventually you squirmed your way up
a sort of invisible ladder
into my arms
where you laid claiming the crook

at night we shared our secrets
while your ears flickered backwards
as I breathed in the warm musty scent of you
our mutual breathing
the bellows which lulled us to sleep

on your last day on earth
you ran into the bathroom with something
so important on your mind
good-bye

as I was bathing in the claw-foot tub
trying to get ready for work....
you placed both of your striped paws
on the tub edge opposite me--
letting out a wounded yowl
so I cooed at you and gently kissed
on top of your forehead
and called your name and nicknames

when I stepped out of the tub
not minutes afterwards...
your life-less body and your
bottle-green eyes wide open
staring up into the eternity of space
one bent paw backwards
the other extended and reaching..
one half of my heart
fell away

knocking furiously
at a neighbors door.
I begged them to verify
what I thought I'd seen
--grey death stealing my treasure

her silent nod
confirmed
you were gone--
stunned I wondered
where did you go?

the next day
with all of your
family pictures,
the busy-ball
a tuft of all of our hair
Lucky's Buddy's Mine
and carried you to
your resting place
the homemade quilt
your shroud

TLP
you taught me
about what it meant love and commit
and play harder
how there could be another day
after a bad one

I've never quite accepted that sad one
and carried with me its remnants
as a bereaved Mother
would carry her child

how often you visit me still

LEGAL COPYRIGHT FOR THIS POEM. 7:14am PST 1/14/2022 TIME/DATE STAMPED
THIS POEM MIGHT EXIST HERE IN ANOTHER FORM ON ANOTHER DAY...BUT
THIS IS THE NEW FORM/DAY. TIGGER IS STILL VERY MUCH A PART OF ME
AND ALSO FOR THIS WRITER MELISSA A. HOWELLS WHO MIGHT NOT HAVE HAD AS
MUCH TO WRITE ABOUT IT...HAD YOU NOT COME INTO HER LIFE
AND ALSO FOR THIS LEGALLY COPYRIGHTED AND REGISTERED SITE TITLE
MELOO STRAIGHT FROM HER TILT-A-WORLD

FOR TIGGER LE POUNCE, ALWAYS WITH GREAT JOY AND REMEMBRANCE AND RUBS...
LOVE ALWAYS, HIS MOM, DAD, AND GREAT LOVE, LUCKY KITTEN