Centerstage Buddhas

Hello friends, my poetry often includes animals. They are nature’s true teachers and I am fortunate to learn from them every day here on the banks of the Oconee. My two “cat familiars” Max and Tony continue to be the centerstage Buddhas in my daily routine and encourage me to stop and rest, observe and enjoy. If there was a mantra in Max’s purring, it was simply “less doing, more being.” Here’s a poem from my 2014 collection The Hum of it All. Learn more about my poetry and other books here on the site by clicking on the links to the right.  Thanks, Gene

The Cat and the Crow

Blue eyes in chocolate face squint at the door
ears forward rump raised
with a swift fix
on my full hands fumbling the knob,
he grasps the sweet moment,
and lunges to freedom but not too much
as he hunkers under Volvo or cryptomeria
mindful of hawk, owl maybe crow,
no place in the open for a Siamese without claws.
Back for the monumental purring on my chest
during Netflix “Max at the Movies”
not far from water food litter
to sniff and mark the known world,
the feisty curmudgeon loves me.

********

Crows prance the morning driveway
squawking their daily agenda
not threatened by me or the New York Times.
No need to dive­bomb my white hair
or my feline in silly harness.
Suddenly they soar full­throated from the oaks
to see the big picture of
life tumbling along the river,
then down again to sandbank for morning prayer and
ablutions.
They wink each other for takeoff,
up and up a proud squadron
ready to swoop and flap over the barricades,
black messiahs to save the earth.