Libraries and museums
hold scraps of death and life
brought into them by living souls
and left to them by the dead.

I sit with this for a long time.
Weakening rays of sunlight
come in at a slant and fail,
one by one, along these long halls.

Stepping out at the end of the day.
I wonder: which relics tell which story
better; which stories are of life,
which of death?

Relics don’t tell their stories easily but
I turn on my heel and leave them to burn.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
onward,
T

Me and the cat,
the cat and me,
I and the cat,
the cat and I
wait in front of the television
for things to happen.
You can put us in any order
you like; we will wait together
like this for fifteen minutes
or five hours; I’ll wait for
the hammer to fall, she will wait
for food or treats or perhaps
nothing at all. Lucky being
that she is, she waits for
whatever comes. I wait for
things I know are coming
and that I fear. Two things,
three things; my own death,
two more, maybe ten or more;
maybe hers will hit me hard,
maybe harder than the others would.
I do not know. I do know
mine would bother her; she’d meow
louder than normal, become listless,
lost in her own miasma
of not understanding it.
I won’t understand it either. Instead
I try to predict the upcoming news
and events, such as they can be.
Of course I’ll get it mostly right,
a few of the important things wrong.
It’s the way of things.
It will not matter if I got it right
once it happens. The cat and me,
me and the cat, I and the cat,
the cat and I will be calm
in the occurrence,
no matter how it’s framed,
no matter how it seems to happen.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
onward,
T