Life Dreams / Lucid Living (c) 2003

Hunting Twigs

A dappled grey kitten
With green, solemn eyes
Dances and prances
After anything that flies

She rests up all day
Curled up in a chair
Purring and dreaming
Of winged things in the air

Then, once the sun sets
She goes out in the dark
And the front yard becomes
Her nocturnal park

As the night birds and beetles
Come out to play
She chases down anything
That happens her way

I stand there and watch her
Jitter bugs and jigs
But what's truly hilarious
Is to see her hunt twigs

She glances around
With her sharpest night vision
‘til she finds one she wants,
And sets her sights with precision

Her tail starts a'twitching,
Her eyes get all slanted
And the branchlet gets scared
Its life no longer for granted

The terrorized stick
Lies glued to the ground
And watches its hunter
Creep ‘round and ‘round

It tries to speak,
To introduce itself, “Sophie”
But the manic little feline
Just pounces on her trophy

She grabs it and tosses it
Way up in the air
Triumphantly flinging it
Over here, over there

She chases it down
Across the cool ground
It's no match for her
And its fear is profound

No matter how hard
It seeks to escape
She finds it and hurls it
Across the landscape

She finally tires
Of playing cat and mouse
And gleefully brings it
To me, in the house

“Look, Ma, what I caught,
Gosh, I'm SO proud!”
And I agree with her, “Yes, dear –
Now let's find a shroud

Your twig battled back
With such honor and might
It must have been feeling
Such terror and fright!

It deserves to be honored,
To be buried, tonight
What do YOU think?”
And she answers, “Quite right!”

So with great pomp and circumstance,
We dig it a hole
And ask of ourselves.
Does a twig have a soul?

We ponder together
As we honor that twig
Then go back in the house,
Jiggedy-jig!



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Hunting Twigs

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