The Cat in the Kitchen

The Cat in the Kitchen


(For Donald Hall)

Have you heard about the boy
who walked by the black water?
I won't say much more.
Let's wait a few years.
It wanted to be entered.
Sometimes a man walks by a pond,
and a hand
Reaches out and pulls him in.

There was no
Intention, exactly.
The pond was lonely,
or needed
Calcium, bones would do.
What happened then?

It was a little like the night wind,
which is soft,
And moves slowly,
sighing like an old woman
In her kitchen late at night,
moving pans about, lighting a fire,
making some food for the cat.

Robert Bly

Posted over on Online Poems