I walked the trail around the wetlands
hoping, on this spring-like day, to see
that migrating ducks had come, or perhaps
an early blackbird or two. Even the sound
of a peeper would have been grand.
But the pond held no feathered visitors
and not even the calls of crows etched
the pearly sky. It is, I reminded myself,
still February, and was content to find
not ice, but puddles, dotting my path.
Then, as I followed deer trails through
the woods, a patch of black and white
caught my eye and I turned to see a cat
stretched atop a fallen log as if she owned it.
Here, in the wildness! I stopped and stooped
and spoke to her. She was, she said,
quite fine and not frightened or lost
at all. “People live,” I told her, pointing,
“up there on the hill, about a third
of a mile away, if you need them.”
She nodded, ever so slightly, then
returned to the pleasure of her fine perch
and the gift of sun-warmed air. So
I walked on, golden eyes following me
until I disappeared.