Each of them has been a god many times: <br />cat, hedgehog and – our summer interloper – the tortoise. <br />A perfect triangle, they can neither eat <br />nor marry one another. <br />And tonight they are gods <br />under the jasmine under the stars. <br /> <br />Already the hedgehog has scoffed the cat’s supper <br />and she’s walked nonplussed beside him <br />escaping headlong into the bushes. <br />Wisely now, she keeps an eye on him there, <br />and on the tortoise <br />noisily criss-crossing the gravel. <br /> <br />For the cat, jasmine is white <br />but the stars have colours. <br />For the hedgehog, there are no stars <br />only a sky of jasmine, <br />against which he sniffs something dark, <br />outlined like a bird of prey. <br /> <br />Wisely, the tortoise ignores both jasmine and stars. <br />Isn’t it enough, she says, to carry the sky on your back, <br />a sky that is solid, mathematical and delicately coloured – <br />on which someone, too, has painted <br />our neighbours’ address: 9a Surrey Rd. <br />Come September, we will post her through their letterbox.<br /><br />Maurice Riordan<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/stars-and-jasmine/
