Afternoon Picnic

Afternoon Picnic


heavy summer day
all things thankful
of the warm breeze
however small
that swept through
the trees preparing
their leaves for collages

ginger white cat
too hot to hunt
slumps on the mat
of the back stoop

a caterpillar
makes his way
across the grooved
black plastic mountains
surrounded by
the concrete steppes
just in time for
an afternoon picnic

ltv




And here's some of my special brand of crazy:

Truth be told, this poem took some poetic license with the events I actually observed.

First of all, Mackenzie, my all grey cat, was the organizer of the impromptu picnic. But "all grey cat" didn't have the same ring as "ginger white cat" so Willow gets the attention (as usual).

Second, It wasn't that hot and Mackenzie had been stalking the caterpillar since it first landed on the mat. She even had it crawling on her face at one point while making first attempts to eat it.

I'm not sure why I felt it was important for you to know that. Perhaps I think it makes me a better poet to have "poeticized" the event. But isn't that what writing poetry is about?

Poets see the world so differently than anyone else. We see the essence of things and we see everything. We see the glittering silver sequin in the pile of dog crap and we see how beautiful it makes everything around it. We see the flaw in the diamond and can imagine it both ruined and exquisite.