From my view above, walking
the hall with the cat, she
slightly leading,
her body sways a little with her
stepping,
undulates, not like the track of
an old river
seen from an airplane, sharply cut
through the land,
nor a snake or earthworm---
which
must exaggerate, side to side.
She makes a subtle, graceful sway.
I think of how that wide river of
ungulates looks,
The elands, zebras, wildebeests,
buffaloes,
seen from the airplane above,
in their Great Migration up the
Serengeti.
The head does not sway, remains
straightforward,
not so much in the hip or shoulder
either,
with soft forward shift one leg to
another,
but, living where the ribs are,
that swing.
When I see that liquefaction
in my cat or in the hordes on TV,
I stare in wonder at how the
four-legged ones
are made, how seen from above,
they move in that way by merely
walking,
in a grace not only probably, but
is.
Mary Ellen Branan
Bastrop,TX
Poetry Society of Texas A book of the year 2012 awards
p. 118, Derry Tutt Memorial Award
