cats awaiting feeding crowd the yards
huddling in the leeward thresholds by the doors to kitchens
cats awaiting feeding sing their oriental songs
middle-eastern wailings, thin keening cries
sparrows hear
tremble above them in the bare-branch trees
(Copyright 2023 by Tetman Callis.)
dead come stand beside me in shy sadness in my dreams and say,
when you are finally with us,
we shall teach you how to return yourself to trees and air,
to smoke and autumn’s falling, crumbling leaves.
when you are finally with us,
darkness shall be as light,
lightness shall be as weight,
waiting shall be as joy,
joy shall be as holding,
and holding you, we shall teach you how.
(Copyright 2023 by Tetman Callis.)
“He is not a good warrior who loses heart in an important enterprise; but he who is not tired even of inactivity, who endures all, and who even if he likes a thing can give it up.” – Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol, “Taras Bulba,” Taras Bulba and Other Tales (trans. various)