London Tom-Cat

By Michael Hamburger

Look at the gentle savage, monstrous gentleman

With jungles in his heart, yet metropolitan

As we shall never be; who- while his human hosts,

Afraid of their own past and it's primaeval ghosts,

Pile up great walls for comfort - walks coquettishly

Through their elaborate cares, sure of himself and free

To be like them, domesticated, or aloof!

A dandy in the room, a demon on the roof,
He's delicately tough, endearingly reserved,
Adaptable, fastidious, rope-and-fibre-nerved.

Now an accomplished Yogi good at sitting still
He ponders ancient mysteries on the window-sill,
Now stretches, bares his claws and saunters off to find
the thrills of love and hunting, cunningly combined.
Acrobat, diplomat, and simple tabby cat,
He conjures tangled forests in a furnished flat.

The Call

By Jean Bush

Oh, who do you call,

My beautiful one?

Rising in iridescent splendor

In the dark side of light against the creeping dawn.

A mourning cry to follow ere the heat of day,

Dries up the velvet feathered throats of longing.

A reddened eye of patience waits and watches;

Awash in tall grass, brown eyes blink

Then more as fear leaps to flight in graceful bounds.

But a muscular coat of dusty fur and the ruby spray of death

Insures another day of life and an all too ready hunger.

SEASCAPE

By Jean Bush

Oh, how you loved it, puppy,

When first you saw the beach.

“Sit, stay, don’t dig the sand.”

I had so much to teach.

You barked and jumped and chased the crabs

And snapped at flying foam.

And fell asleep within my arms

As I gently walked you home.

We took long walks together,

As you splashed and jumped on me.

And the years and tides rolled into one

At our place beside the sea.

The dimming years would clutch my fears

As you unwound from life.

And I put you away and there you stay,

So far away from me.

The tide pulls back so slowly

As I weep on bended knee;

But I can feel you run forever

At our place beside the sea.