Two Cats

are buried in my yard.
Both by me, alone -
although I’m sure
the neighbours watched -
wondered
that in this urban yard
we bury our own dead.
The first, ‘Pud’,
died either of, or by, misadventure.
Half deaf but determined to defend
the yard she ventured into the street
and was gone.

We stood in the driveway
and took comfort in each other.
The next day I was shaken
awake by a bright white blaze
on her heel
which I’d never noticed before
and which has stayed
with me over fifteen years.

The second, ‘Percy’ (the pest),
died shortly after we both agreed -
and said so over the phone -
that there was no more hope.
His last weeks were quiet.
I first noticed
that he was no longer jumping
to the top of the fridge to consider my glasses.
In the end he sat quietly on the floor,
rising from his haunches to accept a caress
then settling back down, not
showing the pain.
The next day I collected him
in a box - smaller and heavier
than I expected.
I selected a spot that got a little sun and shade
and which I thought
would not be soon needed
for a flower bed -
or be walked on too much;
and dug until I thought his paw
would not appear
in the spring.
I lay him sleeping and with small
slow shovel loads covered him -
wondering
which memory would remain.
In the end it was his left ear, listening
to my slow heartbeat
and the sound of the shovel.
Some ancestral memory
sent me to find a small piece of cloth
to cover him -
so the earth would not too quickly
fill that space between his bones.


Oct. 4/02