It's summer solstice, an hour from sunset,
As, in response to a voice inside, I lift my eyes
To the top of a towering cliff overlooking Forgotten Creek.
An orange furball skitters up to the edge, then is hurtled overboard,
Describing a long, lazy parabola as it falls.
The water's surface parts to receive a body now nearly motionless,
Beginning to sink. Dead kitty.
"What cruel soul," I ask myself,
"Could have conceived such a diabolical scheme of pet disposal?"
Then a vigorous shaking, a thrashing about, and kitty's swimming for shore.
He scurries up on the bank and looks up just in time for the next act.
One, two, three, four, five, six, and more,
Sailing off the cliff, splashing loudly in the water, joining the others on the bank.
A motley rainbow of pelts are now assembled, grooming each other with glee.
I watch dumbfounded, barely aware of a rising magnetic hum in my ears.
Suddenly a calico cannon ball flashes past my field of vision and drops,
Making the biggest splash of all.
I look up just as a portal is closing at the base of a white, fluffy mansion of a cloud.
An array of blinking red taillights is barely visible over the luminous, molten rays of the sun
As the cloud drifts slowly eastward into the eventual embrace of darkness.
The Falling Cats of Powell are a great tourist attraction
That no one but me knows about.
Can you keep a secret?
Zack Replica
29 December 1998