[RCL]

Not sure why, but John’s post of Frost’s “Come In” reminded me of this event.

Coyote and Clue

His swaying snout above my cat,
then rolling like a kitty
while high on recent hits of catnip,
quickly triggered pity.

Not just for Clue’s unsafe excess,
but for the gray coyote
starving in his shrinking space
devoured by the city.

“Damnit Clue!” I yelled and stomped.
She finally rolled to me.
He didn’t flinch when my foot hooked
and flung her toward a tree.

Coyote turned but didn’t flee,
left with feral dignity.

[David Callin]

This is a startling vignette, Ralph. Not what I was expecting from the title. (I was expecting our old friend Wile E.)

So this is on the fringes of LA? I can picture the feral dignity very well.

Cheers

David

[Joe Crocker]

Hi Ralph

I was vaguely aware that cats like catnip, but I didn't know it could send them into transports of writhing ecstasy. It seems like the coyote was rather bemused by it too. I loved the -ity rhymes and half-rhymes going right through the poem, and, as David also notes, the feral dignity at the end made me smile.

Joe

[RCL]

David,

Thanks for reading and responding, even though it isn’t about Wiley! Yes, LA has some wild pockets throughout the city; my house for 30 years was at a dead end in a narrow glen with high foothills on three sides, so I had a great view of nature naturing—with UCLA a five-minute drive away. I wanted to call his dignity “undomesticated,” unlike the cat, but couldn’t make it work metrically.

Joe,

Glad there was some news for you about cats and catnip (about half of all cats seem to become junkies, others unaffected a robot told me). Thanks for noting Coyote’s dignity which was much greater in fact as I shouted and tossed windfall plumbs at him from the nearby tree that Clue had sense enough to climb.

Cheers,