The Non-Cat Story

Once upon a time…
The waning Moon reigned lonely in the sky;
her timid beams evoked more shadows than clarity;
under her gaze the lovers are ambiguous
and all promises are deceitful and vain…
In the penumbrae of this world;
many illusions in the streets roomed;
veiled by the chimerical disguise.
In the dusk and only before dawn,
a small village sleep quiet during the night;
ghostly and unseen in any chart…
A grey cat hoped over the roofs –
but no cat he was –
with his sinuous feline wobbling
and brazing starry eyes;
house by house, he visited the unwary sleepers,
crawling underneath their beds,
bringing  the chilling outside air…
Under one cradle he slept,
dreaming to be really a cat;
and maybe that was the reality,
and he was truly dreaming to be under a cradle;
dreaming to be more than a cat…

Flew the butterfly, a stream of butterflies;
spiraling wildly simulating a indoor rainbow;
and he chased after, swift as an arrow;
graceful as a panther…
From one single place the butterflies appeared;
from the open hands of an infant,
with dark and vivacious eyes;
mesmerizing like an enchantment –
Oh, he blinked amazed, Such eyes, such eyes!
A Cosmo I can find there, a quintessential dark!
I can dive and live! I can finally see eternity; divinity!
Why ? Why such cruel fortune happens?
When such portals are finally found,
they are guarded by a three headed guardian;
furious as Cerberus and deaf as Ulysses facing the sirens!
Ah, I shall devour the first head!

In the next day all the city waked in pandemonium;
and the citizens attended to the house baffled :
the little baby disappeared – or not that so! –
in her place stand a little girl, terrified little girl,
bewildered with that uproar; in a corner she heard:
The house is witched! A changeling! Cursed!
Then her mother approached and keenly she looked;
her eyes she gazed, her beauty marks she touched;
and motherly she hugged the little girl in the corner,
and no one else dared to say for a mother would know;
who is her child or not – does not matter the aged body…

He mother called a priest and in the evening called a witch;
with garlic they covered the girl’s widow;
a cross was hanging over her bed,
so that family prayed and prayed:
Oh, Lord, from the heavens send our angels
and spare our humble home from all the evil –
but if You can not take care of us, I beg;
take no offense if we pray for the old gods;
older than you; for during the Witching Hour;
their shadows still roam in this world
and still hear our pleas believing the world is old again…
And they held hands and truly trusted in God.

But that was to no avail…
In the next morning when the dawn approached;
all the populace already waited bellow her window;
and they all noticed, even if the window was closed:
something once again occurred. Alas…
The girl was no more a child, but a youngster,
with unspoiled young body, long slender legs;
her breast small like a blossoming rose hopped.
The mother once again cuddled with care;
tendering her fears with whispering kisses;
and deep inside her chest she pondered:
Who could protect her poor child ?
That day she left her house, with the child and a chest;
in a chariot she traveled fast to her sister’s farm;
far far away in the east.

But far is no distance when you leap in the moon’s back
and travel as fleet as the moonbeam…
It was night, the thirteenth hour to be precise,
when the maiden was awoken, in the penumbrae hidden;
and before her stood a cat – his flanks had scars;
his ear was bent, his fur dirty but his eyes are blazing;
and his request was too simple;
Come with me! Your guardian I defeated;
not just once, not just twice;
there is an old value in the trinity!
She pondered feeling the eerie calm of the dusk;
her steps are graceful and confident;
and she mounted in the cat’s flank and said:
Sometimes when I blink I see no cat at all;
and sometimes I am not the maiden either;
sometimes this world is just a vision and I wonder;
the little child I see sleeping in my daydreams;
she is me dreaming with a cat and a maiden;
or she is just a memory I had keep hidden ?
The cat purred and dashed with her;
hovering in the thick air, he carried his pair;
unseen in the black wondrous sky…