All night he gleams and grooms
A poem about the cat in the sky. (Yes, there is.)
Has it come to this, am I publishing cat poems for clicks? Of course not. Ridiculous. Maybe. Shut up.
CHESHIRE CAT, CRESCENT MOON 2011
He likes a high perch, they all do, and this one
took some getting to — windowsill to fire escape
to rooftop maybe, and then toward dusk begins
his climb through the shadowed, unseen limbs
of the world-tree; up one branch, then another,
to where twigs and air thin into stars, and vanishing
is the best way to keep your balance. All night
he clambers slow between the clouds,
across the sky, the slender lamp of his grin
a cheerful contradiction to stealth; all night he gleams
and grooms, ignoring (or pretending to) the envy
of watchers below on roofs, at windows. Come dawn,
the usual decisions will have to be made, a rescue
yowled for, ladders measured; or perhaps
some fish and a patch of sun will tempt him just enough
to brave the scrambled fading back to visibility,
back to the weight of daylight pleasures, contented rumbles
of sleep while he waits, his grin in hiding, for dusk to rise again.I wrote this poem fourteen (goodness) years ago, after I looked up one twilit evening at a slender crescent moon and realized how much it looked like the “grin without a cat” that Alice found so curious.1 How did you get up there, sweetie? I asked my new invisible friend, and listened for the answer, and wrote it down.
Nobody will ever confuse this with an academic approach to poetry. I wonder, though, how many academic poets get to have conversations with invisible cats. Or visible ones, even.
“'All right,' said the Cat; and this time it vanished quite slowly, beginning with the end of the tail, and ending with the grin, which remained some time after the rest of it had gone. 'Well! I've often seen a cat without a grin,' thought Alice; 'but a grin without a cat! It's the most curious thing I ever saw in my life!'“ — Lewis Carroll, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.
Such fun, and a pleasure to read. Would probably make a very visually charming children's story. thanks
I have seen the Cheshire cat's moon grin before, but never have I wondered how he climbed up to those dizzying heights nor how or why he came down again. The image of him clambering across the sky is delightful. I'll never look at the grinning cat quite the same way again.