The Cats

The cats in my neighbourhood
are all on edge this morning.
Climbing up trees with
no backward look except
 to tell me that they
haven't the time to explain.
Or pacing the street,
counting out something
under their breath.
Walking straight past,
no stopping for
chatting today.
Black and white cat
protests that she's
lost her place because
of my yapping and
really she's got
somewhere else to be.
Tabby cat usually
so dainty
and easily led
is climbing up here
and has no need of me today.
All on edge, all on their way
to their positions, because.
Something is up.

Housing

The house that belongs
to the man I talked to once
is being renovated.
It stands now, open to
the weather, no outside walls
just a roof and internal walls
with no coverings. the
bare bones of that place
showing as though in an x-ray.
He told me that his wife
and him liked historical houses
which interested me
because his neighbours house
is very grand
and I thought it must
have been the landowners house
in the past.
He agreed and said
that his own house has
the old horse stable
at one end and showed
me the gateposts of
the former driveway.
So all this history
is in that bare bones house
underneath the coverings,
on the beams and
Two by Fours we can
now see. 
The house, like a life,
gets added to
 just by living in it.

The Word For My Generation

The word for my generation
has to be depression.
We've had it or know
someone who's had it
or got it and whatever the
relationship, we'll
never be the same.
It's not just our minds
that are involved.
It's the whole economy
which we tended for years
and years like it was
our own nest, our
own eggs. Only to
have it turn on us
 and leave us behind
while it accelerated away.
No looking back, eh?
And all that we did wrong
was to believe what we were told
that hard work and honesty
would see us through.
While we were disassembled
and restructured and
even repositioned to
a brighter future.
And as we left amid
the tears (and jeers)
there was no talk of
depression waiting down the road.
No talk of anything much
because, anyway
they wouldn't hear.

The Coot

The Coot stands in
the same place
every morning
to announce that
she owns the pond.
"I am Coot of Coot's pond.
Do not try to take it from me
or I will drink your blood,
eat your eyes
and the wails of your young and
the cries of your mate
will be my lullabies!"
Her haka is the fiercest
and my son calls her
Aggro Coot.
I have heard the squeals
of a water rat who got
too close to her chicks
 and have seen her in
stand offs with ducks and even a swan.
Her obsidian eyes glittering
as she swore at them
full of menace and rage.
Yet with her chicks
she is the mother of dreams.
Calling them all 'cheep cheep"
and covering them with her wings
as they  fit into her nest
on a log, in the pond.
Yet it is the metre long
 silent submariner eel
who has the last say
with her cheep cheeps.