The Innisfree Poetry Journal

www.innisfreepoetry.org

by Grace Cavalieri

Learning from Buddha

The cat likes to lick

a piece of butter

at the end of a knife

propped up by the window

so he can watch the birds

today I forgot the butter and the knife

he didn't care

he knows

some days

there are no birds.

Stunned

I don't know about dropping a full bottle of wine on the pavement in Pisa

Or both leaving our hats in the locker room in Maryland on the same day

Or talking about our neighbor in West Virginia who killed his cat

As we stand hand in hand looking

At the milk of the moon shining on the whole world

I alive—you dead—saying if this could happen, anything could.

Note:  Grace recently lost her beloved husband, the sculptor Kenneth Flynn, one of whose sculptures is the subject of a poem of remembrance by Sonja James elsewhere in this issue of Innisfree.