Cats on a hot tin roof;
This is not a spoof.
I caught them in the act,
plodding without tact;
no quiet creeping fog,
but sounds like a dropped log
wake me at 6 a.m.
an alarm I condemn.
Three small, thin, wastrel cats
sleep on our roof on mats,
but before the sun rises
they start their surprises—
jumping, falling, leaping,
above our bodies sleeping;
our rest is interrupted;
our sleep is cut, abrupted.
After the cats, the birds
wake us without words—
the cuckoos call coo-ee
it’s morning, don’t you see?
Crows join the morning chorus,
caw, caw, caw —please join us—
reminds me of Dad’s ritual
in feeding crows was punctual.
If birds do not interrupt
my sleep, nor dreams disrupt,
dogs will inevitably
bark most capably.
It seems to be my fate
to not sleep in till 8.
If Indian sounds in the morn
from our lives were shorn—
would we regret the loss,
or then become less cross?
Would extra hours of sleep
make up for loss of peeps?
I cannot make a choice
to deprive of a voice,
animals, and birds that sing
a welcome to morning bring.
Vikram Seth’s Golden Gate inspired me to write in verse rather than prose for this blog post.
