Purr-fect

I love cats because I love my home and after a while they become its visible soul.  ~Jean Cocteau

 

Blood Moon

 The wind comes to worry the earth. Rising up off the lake it crests the clay cliffs and juggernauts into the lea. Hedges and fences are painted with windblown grocery bags, candy wrappers and muddy coffee cups. The fields are strewn with stripped bark, broken branches and fallen nests. The newly greened land is bisected by a grey curtain of rain that rides the wave. It crests to break in hard bullets striking the ground punctuating the rolling surge with a staccato rhythm. The wind climaxes and with a sharp crack the old apple tree splits in two. A snow of apple blossoms rises up and is carried away in the maelstrom. Between the lips of shredded bark the white flesh of the broken trunk glistens pale in the rain under the grey black sky.

The smell of fermenting apple, cloying and sharp, rises from the ruin. Dying from the inside out carpenter ants have softened the heart of the tree leaving a honey tinted pulp, an intricate and muddied labyrinth of passages. Limb by limb the chain saw rives the fallen giant. All the while the wind howls, sweeping in great circles; a wolf rounding the slaughter yard. The growl of the chainsaw blends with its bay.

Night falls and so does the wind, sulking in the dark…waiting. The crescent moon rides the murky swell as it passes and we spin through the firmament. In the still early hours of morning, hidden from the glaring light of day, the bowers burning are graced even now with crumpled brown apple blossoms breathing out the delicate fragrance of a spring aborted. Acrid smoke rises up into the sky. The stench of seared green leaves cling in bitter and stinking brown. The moon fades from warm gold to a stain of clotted blood only to be swallowed by the black heralding the dawn chorus.

Les Enfants Terribles

Trouble has a new name, two if you’d like to be exact…

 

The pet cemetery at the back of our yard has been growing at a slow but steady rate. Since the acquisition of our new home three years ago we have interred one hedgehog, one zebra finch and two cats. In an effort to slow the trend our household population has been expanded by a very young twosome. The Prodigal Son has named our adoptees “Captain Awesome” (the utterance of Captain Awesome must be undertaken only with the accompaniment of a hand gesture stabbing the air vigorously in front of the orator) and “The Black Avenger”. The Black Avenger was demoted to “The Dark Avenger” after peeing on the Prodigal’s leg. For simplicity’s sake other members of the household have chosen to refer to said adoptees as “Charlie and Jack”. Our husky-shepherd-cross, Jack Kerouac or Kera as she is more commonly known is understandably disconcerted. As anyone can see, these two will be an ongoing concern.

Captain “Charlie” Awesome,  “Jack” the Dark Avenger, and “Kera” Kerouac