Because the cherry blossoms peek from their tight-fisted hulls
and the sugar maples, lagging behind the cherries, are feigning

some interest in spring with their green hesitant haze,
I will put down the pen mid-sentence and struggle the window

open, its creaking and jamming a ritual response to my yearly
insistence on letting in snappish March air. This so arouses

the interest of the grey cat, sleekish in sun warmth, he ambles in,
jealous of his comfort, to discover what newness has intruded.

We’ve grown accustomed to the slow progress of his ailing body.
Paws up and steadied, he sniffs at the air and after a few attempts

to gain vantage of what is beyond and forbidden to house cats,
he settles for staring over the sill, still as stone, as goldfinch

swoop and bounce onto nearby branches. Housebound and unable
to pounce, the grey’s hackles rise in response, true to the nature

assigned him as Felis Catus. Carnivore, hunter, predator. The finches
unfazed by what’s unknown, sit silently or lift from branches, brief

studies of air, of balance, of flight and soar. Imagine what it is to live
with singular intent, vibrant and burnished by breeze. Where days

tick by, circle in their orbits, make yesterday no less brightly shone
than today, each dawn sun a balm, each night song a hymn. Imagine

being unaware of peril poised nearby, and when time retreats,
to abandon the body, brief with weightlessness, golden in the sun.

—Robbin Farr

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