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I swore my soul to serve a single god:

Perfection was his name, and only he

I loved, and lived to tread but where he trod,

and only saw what he would have me see.

It mattered not that his ways were far more

that anything my mortal frame could do;

for one day, if I made each muscle sore

attempting it, he’d make my efforts true.

It wasn’t ‘til I saw what my works wrought

that I knew I’d been captured by a lie.

A good god would, my other ‘base’ loves, not

forbid, nor ‘tarnished’ charity deny.

And so I chose, instead, a messy god

whose paths are pure, despite their muddy sod.

~~~

Annoyed, I am, by yowlings by my cat,

annoyed by how he yells where’er he’s at.

But I should not be stewing in such spat—

—the Lord wants, from the likes of me, just that.

He wants it, wishes that I, too, would yell

to heaven from his footstool where I dwell,

that I should ring as oft as a town bell:

each hour from trials large and small in hell.

How much I have to learn from one so small,

this cat with every ounce of trust and gall,

who thinks I make both food and rain to fall,

and cure, like God, his tribulations, all.

So I will pray a bit more, as I ought,

just as my faithful, vocal cat has taught.