Lockdown with Cat

I am
the cat
who walks by herself,
proudly practising
social distancing
from others.

I purr
at the spring sun
stroking my fur,
while my human
peers from a prison
of windowpanes,
longing for a friendly hug,
a shared coffee and conversation.

In the meantime, we’ve had to ration
cat food until the next delivery.
We’ll be OK,
I

go

hunting

                                           every day.

Kim M. Russell, 6th April 2020

My response to Imaginary Garden with Real Toads NaPoWriMo Day 6 Play it Again in April 2020: Speaking in the Voice of Another. Also linked on 15th May 2020 to earthweal open link weekend #20

In her prompt of 6th April 2018, Sherry took us back to feudal times in China, when girls and women were oppressed, often living in isolation, and women in the Hunan province developed a secret language of female writing called nu shu. A young girl was matched with a lifelong best friend, or soul sister, called her laotang, with whom she communicated by letters, sometimes inscribed on fans.

The exercise was to write a poem in the voice of another: the voice of a woman living in feudal times, addressing her laotang, or from the point of view of any living creature.

I’m merging this prompt with Kerry’s Skylover Wordlist, sourced from Dylan Thomas’s poetry collection Deaths and Entrances, from which the sixth word is ‘others’.

40 thoughts on “Lockdown with Cat”

  1. I am also rationing cat food for the feral cat who lives under the house.. he does as he pleases, walks alone, but can tell the time by his stomach!

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  2. I am wondering about the feral cat colony down the street from where I used to live. The whole neighborhood fed them.
    Your poem captures exactly what I imagine a cat’s thoughts to be.(k)

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  4. This is absolutely brilliant, Kim! 💝👏 You voice perfectly the silent, calm and regal disposition of a cat during lockdown time.

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  11. Kim: you are a purrrrfect cat! Even the shape of the poem….the cat sitting there, it’s tail extended with a curl….like it’s waiting for its prey to appear! LOVE it!

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  15. Speaking with the voice of a cat here offers a right-sized vantage on the faces peering out from the window! Cats may be much smaller than us but I know our calico is fully in control of this house. Well done –

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  20. Pingback: Cat Walk – writing in north norfolk

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