509 and 510

Why do you want to be on my pillow?

That’s where my head goes—can’t you see it, cat?

I don’t wish whisker stabs nor breath to blow—

take elsewhere your breath and whisker combat.

Here’s space enough beside me, don’t you see?

And here, the blanket that you love so much.

Why not be there, asleep comfortably,

and not here, where our noses have to touch?

I pray, dear desperate cat, find somewhere else

to find your slumber ere the midnight hour,

ere beard and fur become as flummoxed pelts

of fibers mismatched and immune to scour.

Or not. You snore already. So be it.

One night, this arrangement, I shall permit.

~~~

Dear he who knows not what he does not know,

who looks for where Love lives from where Dark lurks,

who wades betwixt the two both to and fro,

who wishes he would wish whatever works—

your path may be lit by a candle flame,

not near enough to see but your own feet—

recall that most are subject to the same

and choose not trying, but banal defeat.

Keep wandering. Keep trying to and fro,

take every step your candlelight reveals.

Each step, to warmth, or even into woe,

the last step’s ill result surely repeals.

Refute what you know not with your foray

into the Dark: step—and refuse to stay.