A Good Way to Love

I have had cats since I was five years old. A whole host of them,
White Persian. Tuxedo kitties.
Big orange cats with more braun than brains.
A calico or two. Black cats that could disappear into the night.
A whole slew of striped alley cats. Somehow my favorite.

I like cats, opportunists that they are.
I like the way they love. Indipendent as hell,
if they choose you it has nothing to do
with a genetic predispostion to love, like, say, dogs possess.
No they choose you, fully aware of their value
and the gift of their presence it is a true love,
not a thing of desperation.

They are not afraid to be without you.
In fact, they do just fine on their own.
Sometimes they prefer it. I get that.
But in the end, if they love you,
they find theirselves close. A gentle purr
letting you know just what they feel.
Safe and secure. Just as I feel when they are in my lap,

each time, a child again, like each was my first cat.
A good way to love. A good way to love.

About this poem

I think I was a cat in another life. The picture is of one of my little beasties, Sophia, with her two inch stub of a tail.

Tom