Catmint Tea
Catmint Tea - Ciaran Carson
Catmint Tea
The cat and I are quite alike, these winter nights:
I consult thesauruses; he forages for mice.
He prowls the darkest corners, while I throw the dice
Of rhyme and rummage through the OED’s delights.
He’s all ears and eyes and whiskery antennae
Bristling with the whispered broadcast of the stars,
And I have cruised the ocean of a thousand bars,
And trawled a thousand entries at the dawn of day.
I plucked another goose-quill from the living wing
And opened up my knife, while Cat unsheathed his claws.
Our wild imaginations started to take wing.
We rolled in serendipity upon the mat.
I forged a chapter of the Universal Laws.
Then he became the man, and I became the cat.
from The Twelfth of Never(Gallery/Wake Forest University Press, 1998), © Ciaran Carson 1998, used by permission of the author and publishers