Slightly Late for Sunday

[rejectomorph]

The moon is nearly full, and the mild night is perfect for watching the shadows creep about. The lower half of the house is not yet shadowed by the eaves, but sports the tangled shadows of the rose bushes. The exhaust turbine on the roof is spinning slowly, and the moonlight reflecting from parts of the metal causes three pale lights to flash by over and over again, like the ghost of some festive mirror ball in a dance hall demolished ages ago.

A mile or so to the north there is a hill with a curved road climbing it, and every now and then a car's headlights will sweep a patch of sky between two pine trees and fade into the night above. On another block nearby a dog was barking for about three minutes, but no other dogs joined in. All the time I was observing these things the feral cat who has to sneak into the yard to have dinner because the other feral cats run him off was crunching a bowl of food. He finished and crept off warily, crossing patches of moonlight as he made his way to the back fence, and I was left alone with the chirping and buzzing insects.

The earth turned and the eave shadow gradually swallowed the wall, and the rose bush shadows shifted onto the ground and grew less distinct. The breeze picked up and the turbine spun faster as the light moved upward and turned into a streak around its top. Cars passed less and less frequently, and finally there was only the sound of the insects and the occasional rustling of leaves. The air was not quite chilly enough to make me shiver, but I shivered once anyway. My thoughts let go of gravity and I closed my eyes and rose into the moonlit sky.




Sunday Verse

The Abandoned Valley

by Jack Gilbert

Can you understand being alone so long
you would go out in the middle of the night
and put a bucket into the well
so you could feel something down there
tug at the other end of the rope?

Comments

[daisydumont.livejournal.com]

I miss having a yard to go out and stand it and watch the night. Thank you for the vicarious view!

I wonder why the other feral cats are mean to this one. His name must be Rudolph.

[rejectomorph]

I call him Porky because he used to overeat and got fat, until the other cats got tired of his surly behavior (he never liked any of them, either) and started running him off whenever he showed up. He weighs less now. There was one young black tom cat, Shorty, who tried to make friends with him, but Porky would just hiss and growl, so Shorty gave up, and now he sometimes chases Porky away, too, even though Shorty may be the best-disposed cat I've ever known (he's terrified of people other than me, but he likes cats.)

[daisydumont.livejournal.com]

Gee whiz, if he'd just sweeten up a little, he could have friends! And food without stress! Let that be a lesson to him. But he probably won't listen. ;)