February Evening, The Revellers Returned. (Revised).

The cat turns her back on the painted birds,

They cannot entice her.

She stares satirically out of the high window

Looking for something meaningful to hunt,

Raw meat for her table.

The fields far below her growing dark,

The crowds that peopled them an hour ago

Have wandered home in drunken disarray

Seeking an early night.

The cat looks down for tit bits in the grass,

Perhaps a rodent, careless and overweight.

Someone has hung a cloth from the window

                                                              ledge,

A blue and white cloth placed next to a blue

                                              and white bowl.

A batch of scrolls have been dropped upon the

                                                               floor,

Flowers have been placed upon them.

The pictures of birds are white, or grey and white.

The cat resides in a reality all of her own,

A reality that only a Zen Monk could understand.

The evening sun has set the clouds on fire.

Mount Fuji, blue as the morning, stands quiet

                                         and unimpressed;

Real birds flying over the summit,

                                 Swiftly out of the picture.

Trevor John Karsavin Potter.

1st. - 7th. February 2021.

From a print by Hiroshige, Poem Number Two. The month of March.