Friday, March 06, 2009

Anecdote of the Garden

Krazy Kat's fur is black
like the bruised wing of a crow.

Firecat is red
like the speckled eye
of a peacock's feather.

Krazy Kat appeared first,
like Abel, in the world.

Firecat will arrive later,
the last one before the end.

Firecat and Krazy Kat share
the silky sand of his garden.

Krazy Kat slumbers in the shrubs
in the doomed darkness of dusk,
while Firecat doozes on the grate.

Another mediates the in-between;
Snowcat purrs under the red rushes
beyond the bed of purple irises.

Snowcat loves Krazy Kat and Firecat.

Snowcat exists in perpetual winter;
she is the queen of snow
that blows from ether.

Snowcat cannot purr; her throat
is blocked; the glottal stop
is wrecked. Instead, she listens
while Firecat and Krazy Kat sing
a stone-song
trending toward harmony.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Aw I love this one Mr Harvey. But there is one small puzzlement for me. I don't understand why you changed tense in the 3rd and 4th stanza.Please to put my brain in order. Or try too! For this is lovely, you.

kwh said...

This poem could be about the alchemical process of change. Snowcat is the mediator or the albedo. She exists in the present tense, looking forward to Firecat, the final stage, while looking backwards at the first stage nigredo (past tense). Or it could be about the cats in my father's garden or about poetry's ability to change the poet. Or it could be just irrational. Who knows?

Anonymous said...

Or it could be all four! Which I think she is!And now reading her again with new eyes, I can see a more clearer picture.Thanks, you.