Sunday, April 25, 2010


The moon lodged pearl-like in an abalone cloud.  A dull, heavy west wind was bringing rain, and I unhitched the Colombian hammock from the climbing tree.  The gray cat aquiver was padding along each branch above me as I moved to unhook the cords and carabiners.  I remembered that someone said -- cats are creatures not so much nocturnal, as crepuscular.  So I whispered that word, crepuscular, and touched the cat's out-clawed feet above me.  Startled, sniffing, she lowered her head,  rasped my knuckle twice with her tongue and moved to a branch above scanning the night around.  And the tree-branch lichen whispered something under my restless fingers.