How to love this cat?

My girlfriend's cat comes into my lounge
and sharpens her claws
against the silence of my grandma's old rocking
chair.

How to love this cat?
That is the question.



(With apologies to Mary Oliver)

Blessed

Four days ago
a butterfly
a red admiral
flew in through my open window and got himself stuck behind glass trying to get out

I cupped him in my hands and threw him back out into the free air
and off he flew

For the last three days
a butterfly
a red admiral
has flown back in through my open window
and flutterred happily around my room before
flying out again

It seems such a coincidence
I wonder
is it the same butterfly each day?
coming to thank me?

In any case
when he comes by
I look up from my work
and feel blessed by him

Mary Oliver - How to love this world, that is the question

Spring

Somewhere
a black bear
has just risen from sleep
and is staring

down the mountain.
All night
in the brisk and shallow restlessness
of early spring

I think of her,
her four black fists
flicking the gravel,
her tongue

like a red fire
touching the grass,
the cold water.
There is only one question:

how to love this world.
I think of her
rising
like a black and leafy ledge

to sharpen her claws against
the silence
of the trees.
Whatever else

my life is
with its poems
and its music
and its cities,

it is also this dazzling darkness
coming
down the mountain,
breathing and tasting;

all day I think of her –
her white teeth,
her wordlessness,
her perfect love.