white, the cat

White, the cat sits, silent, waiting.

Tail curled round, feet covering,

still as stone, whiter than snow.

Thinks behind half lidded eyes

at the corner, bricked red vertical

of a building, stone first lain

in the year of our Lord 1837

an exercise in Euclid's geometry,

three lines intersect, one vertical

two horizontal, an arrows point

for those who will see.

Morning light, cold, early May,

blue the sky, dry clear, no clouds.

The city waking, not yet started

upon the business that day brings.

The work of night remains still,

undiscovered, hidden by the light.

She waits, there, for the eye

which can see, and the will

to follow. The chosen, cursed,

known neither to Fate, nor to God

White, the cat sits, silent, waiting,

looks neither right nor left, unseen.

The many walk, past, preoccupied.

Minds miles from their moving bodies.

Whose lives unspooling round them,

tangled dim perception, time, binding

foot and hand, so fall they headlong

into death. Unknowing, unknown.

And so leave behind,

no shadow.

In jewelers windows, watch escapements

wheel in endless journeys pivoting

left and right, sum to zero, to nothing.

Still, the second hand circles,

the minute and hour hands sweep,

return to the moment of beginning.

A stopped clock, twice every day

is correct.

White, the cat watches sun shadows

scribing slow arcs, sundial the world.

Triangulate the sun. Buildings, gnomon

anchoring darkness, measure the day.

Intersecting planes of light and dark,

mirror windows, incidence equals reflection.

Time is but a geometry made manifest,

by the reflected, refracted day.

The blinding light of an invisible sun.

Thy Ward is Intricate -

He moves through both light,

and dark.

White the cat, bright, his eye catches.

White tail curled round, hiding

bright feet. Waits still, there in shadow,

now silver bright, she on the arrows

sharp point, whose tip abrupt pierces,

breaks the chains of his thought

of time,

of money,

of women,

of sex.

Of lies to be told.

Of truths elided.

Of things desired.

Of money to buy.

Of business the day

Of pleasure the night.

White, the cat knows,

he is the one.

So fixes her gaze,

so stills,

so stops him -

There?

No, there.

His career abrupt halted. With black

slit iris, golden tigers eye, which behind

leaping, yellow flaming, dancing light,

fires, freezes him into stillness.

The world unseeing, flows about him,

briefly slows unstopped. The waters,

the river, eddy round him a moment,

a stone, a pebble, then speeds again,

spinning ever downward

into the eternal ocean.

White, the cat, brighter still

than the light which upon her rests,

stands now, pin balanced

on the moments point.

At the alley's mouth sharply,

needs no more wait.

Upon that line of infinite time,

She, bright edged with stars fire.

She, ten thousand suns burning

holes in the shadow fabric of

night. Her flaming eyes illumine

his soul. She knows him true,

cannot be deceived. Now must he

follow her into the dark.

Distant low echoes, thunder

between the towers weight,

gravity calling falling failing

groaning steel, cloud grey

billows outward spreading,

so strange and beautiful,

the flowers of death.

Colors fading, melt

before him, chalk

on a wet sidewalk,

running in a dry rain.

Falls black, from an unclouded

sky. Leave behind the city

in towers of shadow.

Stand now round them,

streets empty of life.

White, the cat, star bright, shining,

moves away, down the ghost alley,

where so still, the nights work remains

undiscovered, at the place where the eyes

of day are blind. Where he alone can see.

Time stopped he, awakens into nightmare.

- Follow -

She, now the star of his wandering bark,

his feet obey, his minds consent

ungiven, the black bricked alley

swallows him, gulleted. Cold stone

jars his step. His mind commands stop.

Yellow eyes, flame flicker into his, knifelike.

- Follow -

White, the cat moves, She, his only light,

soft footed, through the shadow alley.

He fears to follow, fears more to stay,

she opens a path through a hungering

darkness, he feels its hunger, knows

its desires, eternal, unsated. Remembers,

now, it fears the light of stars. Sudden,

childhoods memory awakens. Years

forgotten. As a child he dreamt, of

this land of night, and the Dark City.

The City called Night.

I dream, it's only a dream. His fear

forgotten, so, he dreams again.

What harm can befall one

who dreams? He will awaken,

sun shining, safe in his bed.

Silver star bright, the cat sits, silent,

waiting, tail curled round, feet covered.

Eyes, black slit pupils, flame irised, flickering.

His voice now found, he speaks -

"Lead on."

So rises She again.

As forward she leads,

so behind her,

he follows.

Into this, the new found

City of Night.