Palimpsest

In Praise of Mrs. Prothero’s Cats

The Welshman’s misty-eyed tale

Of a child’s remembrances of long ago

Fit neatly into the story-time-slot

That I shared with my children each night

Come Christmas season.

The Welshman and I go back a long way.

He was the first to give me the key

To lyricism in the written word

Where things are more than they seem

Yet less than they first appeared.

You wrap his words around you

Like an old and tattered coat

And immerse yourself  in his sing-song voice

As he recites a song of his childhood.

But back to the cats.

The cats were at the heart of this tale,

Although their appearance was brief,

Softly padding ghosts

All unawares of what was to befall

They haunt the air throughout.

They trip up the firemen

Or lounge before the evening’s fire

Even in their absence

Padding silently through the snow

Or before the hearthside fire.

They were distant and haughty

Silhouetted against a gibbous moon.

They were hushed as flakes of new-fallen snow.

Their eyes were unknowable as they moved 

And padded through our time-worn memories

With studied indifference to our passing.

They were gilded memories of a faded time.

They were shadows of malicious intent

And we kept them at bay.

Until the air erupted in a hail of snowballs.

Yes. Yes. The cats.

I fear I’ve wandered again.

The story proceeds in feline fashion

Insinuating itself through the town

Recalling memories of my own

Woven in the tapestry of other seaside villages.

The misty-eyed tale winds through 

Fading and imperfect memories,

Recalling cold wet evenings

When the calls rang out “Come Home!”

In a tone that brooked no challenge.

I once possessed a cat named Sam.

Jet black as night and aloof as ice.

Note that I did not say “Had a cat”.

No one has a cat

You merely possess it until such time

as it chooses to go.

There was a feline air about the town

That crept into every nook.

It wrapped around your ankles

A purring mist arching past your leg