At Five AM
At 5 am the cat arrives, dampFrom night-time showers
Fresh from his wild-kill bowers.
Stealthy, he swings up past the lamp,
Lands heavily on the bed,
Jumps nimbly across my head
And (thankfully) settles down, gratefully,
Deep into a purr
Stretches, sleeps, the merest blur
On my dim dreaming.
The dog awakes, joins the cat on the bed
Stretches languorously
Settles down magnanimously,
Lapses into a snoring slumber,
Limbs jerking in a dreaming lumber
Cumbering the coverlet with the heavy clog
Of night-time dog.
At 6 am an owl hoots.
The cat still drowses
But the dog (of course) rouses,
They are (not yet) in cahoots.
Dog has a vigourous scratch
Slurping over that troublesome patch
Snorts hard and attempts to combobulate
Gets me to accept my inevitable fate
And get out of bed to make
The morning pets’s collation.
They are definitely in cahoots now
And to make sure I bow
To their need for me to kow tow
And serve up their chow
The cat utters a plangent meow:
A lambent salutation
A beneficent oblation
A bed emptying displacement
And I am up and following orders.
Though still dark
The day’s arc
Has begun.
Dog and Cat are one
And have won;
Both clever arousers
And I am up and pondering
Who is wearing the trousers.
