Hero
Poetry
A neighbor dog was circling,
like a race car missing a front tire,
around the bottom of that Chestnut tree out back. gonnagetyougonnagetyougonnagetyou.
Cat was up the tree, eyes wide,
softly crying: ohnoohnoohnoohno.
Rodney got his ladder.
He didn't want to reach out
to an unknown, panicked feral cat,
pretty as it was.
He might have lost his balance.
Maybe, even, an eye.
Still, he reached out and gently
brought that cat down while,
below, we sent the dog packing.
That cat spent that night in the guest room
and every night since, wherever it likes.
It watches the dog, and other nightly creatures,
calmly, from the safety of the window sill,
knowing Rodney sleeps nearby.
Janet McCraw is a Rhode Island artist who studied at Ricker College in Houlton, Maine. She most often works in acrylics and collage but writing and animals have been lifelong companions. Her household currently includes two (formerly) feral cats who invited themselves in during the pandemic. “And that,” as Mr. Frost wrote, “has made all the difference.”