It is a time to celebrate the unconditional love and companionship that cats bring and the humor they provide. Cats were domesticated some 12,000 years ago. National Cat Day was established in 2005. Here is a collection of poems to help celebrate.
Persistence
– by Carol Miller Vanhoff
The jays tell their story
of my cat in the yard.
Echoing his meows,
shrieking shrill warnings,
they scold with persistence.
Some elders are daunted
by my low-stalking friend
having previously lost a winged love one
to a stealthy feline—
a neighbor’s,
who scaled the feeder’s six-foot post
then hunched beneath waiting.
In the case of the jays
persistence furthers.
Cat comes inside without having snagged
even a feather on his sharp claws.
In his bathing he is persistent,
and when finished we watch the birds from my window
together.
Sansa
– by Charles Darnell
She looks like porcelain,
a cliché, I know.
Her face narrow,
eyes slanted and green
or blue depending on the light.
The bridge of her nose,
a smoke-gray all the way down
ends with a dark pink tip.
Ears a light chocolate brown.
Lately, she has decided
I am her person.
She sits now on my lap
watching the cursor or letters
on the screen
reaching her paw
toward this very poem.
I look over her left shoulder
watching the keys,
a hunt and peck,
never learned
touch-type.
Finally, she tires of the game
and walks on the keyboard,
intrigued by
new lines of zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz’s
and the legacy of soft white hair
on my green shirt.
Mathematical Cat
– by Don Mathis
I’ve a mathematical cat.
She does figures in nothing flat.
She’s a fine multiplier
to the third power.
Nine kittens attest to that.
Cat’s Dilemma
– by Chris Billings
I’m outside
so he’s outside
but he wants to be inside
but I’m outside
so he’s outside
wanting me to go inside
so he can go inside
but I like outside
so he sits by the door left ajar
looking inside
then at me outside
then back at inside
really wanting to go inside
but I’m staying outside
so he goes inside
then comes back outside
because I’m still outside
so, he sits and sighs
and stays outside
waiting for me
to go inside
and all those times I stood holding the door
waiting for him to either stay in or go out
never seem to cross his mind
—
