He wrote because he was

strewing words like cedar shavings
on the path to his door,
hoping the cats would come.
The shavings were clean, definite, insect-free.
A place where they could free themselves
of what was such a burden, it had become a daily chore,
without soiling their paws.
The same paws
they would lick when preening,
sitting on their haunches,
the paws they wiped their faces with,
jostling whiskers tuned to detect
molecules of air
when the rats they hunted for their litter
scurried in the night.


                                Brandywine
                                3/9/96