A Cat's Dream

I should like to sleep like a cat,  

folding myself into the fur of time,  

its tongue, a map etched in flint,  

its silence, a hymn sung to fire.  

No words for anyone—only the stretch,  

the world beneath me like warm stone.  

I have watched a cat asleep,  

how its breath undulates like dark tides,  

how the night bends into its spine,  

a current pulling it closer to the edge  

of some dream-heavy, snowbound cliff.  

Each flicker of its tail, a quiet sermon.  

In dreams, it becomes everything:  

great-grandfather tiger, silent rooftop shadow,  

a comet traversing volcanic skies unseen.  

Its slumber is cathedral and hunt alike,  

no stained glass, only claws, relentless heart,  

a vigilant sentinel guarding the obscured.  

Sleep, keeper of midnight’s fire,  

with your stone-carved moustache blazing.  

Unravel our jagged dreams beneath your paw.  

Hold us steady in your ruff of moonlight.  

You, the pulse of patience, the quiet psalm,  

guide us through the obscurity till dawn.