Warmed By Goat Breath

 
Just before first light
sky the color of fog,
our dogs nose down
reading plotlines in the grass,
I spy something in the pin oak.
It’s small and brown, with a shiver of
white fluff barely visible to one side.

A neighbor’s barn cat had summer kittens,
five exuberantly friendly creatures
who pester our porch-dwelling chipmunk
and crouch on my son’s repair-hungry Ford.
I hurry under the tree to call kitty kitty
afraid a kitten climbed so high it can’t get down.

Last night’s wind swiped most leaves
to the ground and tongues of snow
now lick frost-killed flowers.
How long has this poor thing clung to a branch?
I imagine how cold it must be, how afraid.

I hope our ladder reaches that high, but oh
how good it will be to cradle that kitten
close, warm it in my jacket, carry it home.

Then, light just now yawning awake,
it dawns on me—what I’m fussing about
is an empty bird’s nest, bit of snow stuck
in its sticks. There’s so much to worry over,
so much beyond my help, but not this kitten
safe in a barn warmed by goat breath,
maybe dreaming right now of its courage.

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Entire Earth Vibrated For Nine Days After Climate-Triggered Mega-Tsunami

 
The glass always rattled when my mother carried a cup and saucer.
Her heedless children laughed along with its percussion.
She laughed too but sometimes I heard her murmur
to herself, quiet as a prayer, steady        steady.
Not long before she died, the family tremor passed to me
in the strange way genes bestow gifts.
I don’t know what it was like for her
any more than I know how Earth feels
as her mountains and seas percuss with each tremblor.
I do know when my hands shake, my insides shake more.
When it’s hard to hold a glass
my concentration already wobbles,
my mood already rattles.
Oh, Earth, I tremble for you.
May you hear our whisper
steady        steady.

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Despair Questionnaire

 
What color is your despair today? Use at least two adjectives. _______

Is your despair more mummy wrap or ankle monitor? _______________

Check off levels of despair achieved:
                °continuous sad movie
                °blank inertia
                °anguish thick as molasses, except foul
                °black hole’s intense gravitational force

Have you tried stuffing your despair into a jar, then sealing it? ________

What movie title most effectively names your despair? ______________

What hidden thing does your despair ask you to see? ________________
                (You can’t see it yet. Just guess.)

What might ease your despair?
                °being picked up, held, rocked to sleep
                °being listened to
                °seaside vacation
                °the end of rapacious capitalism
                °other

How might your despair most accurately be weighed?
                °baby scale
                °doctors’ office scale
                °truck scale
                °scale of the universe

Please sign and date this form for our records.

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(Featured image from Pexels)