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I like to walk, although sometimes doing so poses a problem or two.
George was a suggested assignment by his parents, who approved the result
while understanding my preference for felines, as these poems will illustrate.
George
Sunset Date
I Walk A Lake
Ode to Crockett Roads
(Berkeley Poetry Walk)
GEORGE
SUNSET DATE
Late in the day I walk or jog for movement's sake. I carry spray against bad dogs who have escaped, but none for cats. Felines I pet, and one awaits. Now I am back. The calico was by her gate. I got her head, her ears and fur fluffed up like so. I am her slave. I'm old, she's spayed, so we behave, but we both know I'm not inured to cat allure. Just as I go, she paws my toe to hear me purr. I WALK A LAKE
I leave a barking wake of sound waves as I walk my neighborhood's long lake of hard, dry, black asphalt.
Both banks are lined by dogs, each setting off the next one. I pity those who jog through waves of canine tension.
Protectors of their turf, these dogs lack calm cat poise. They push me down the street in howling Vs of noise.
I like unruffled felines who pose on painted porches. Their engines purr; their clean lines, sure --like sailboats, docked, they’re gorgeous.
ODE TO CROCKETT ROADS
In neighborhoods where autos park on sidewalks, I’m no easy mark. While strolling you, I hear, then see most vehicles aimed straight at me and jump between parked cars, intact despite the fact they’re tightly packed. Whatever guzzles gas will pass, its noise and stink, a noxious mass.
However, hybrids hardly hum. Sometimes I do not hear them come so silently behind me that my body could be smartly smacked unless the driver, on the ball, detects a trekker, fairly tall, whose carbon footprints, hard to see, land on your roads where wheels should be.
Published in the December 2007 Crockett Signal
For BERKELEY POETRY WALK,
please see WINNERS page, and thanks!
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