and when the cat had finished drinking <br />and he had watched that delicate pink tongue <br />lapping as carefully as any lady <br />and had wondered whether cats enjoy this patient method <br />or whether they long to pour it down their throats, carelessly <br />and savagely, as they live wildly in the nights <br /> <br />then he heard the poem call <br />faintly, almost indifferently, the sound unmistakeable <br />yet always different <br />this time it came from a far distance <br />beyond the cat, though the cat was somehow part of it, <br />beyond the yard where he had once and never forgot <br />put a bullet into the old dog that <br />could not stop shaking <br /> <br />beyond the barn, beyond the field <br />where he nuzzled his favourite of the horses <br />and it allowed this intimacy, patiently; <br /> <br />so far beyond, so faint, the cry that poems make <br />as they, like cats, like dogs, like horses <br />who know nature so much more certainly than we <br />the sound that poems make as they wait patiently <br />to be found <br /> <br />he walked towards it but many times was lost, <br />he had to stop, stand still, listen, <br />and wait to hear that sound <br />recognisable but different every time <br /> <br />and when he and the poem had found each other <br />they were for a moment, silent, still, <br />then both turned to look over his shoulder <br />to where, yet further still, <br />the next poem had begun to call to him, faintly, almost indifferently, <br />the sound familiar, yet never quite the same<br /><br />Michael Shepherd<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-poem-called/
