I’m still not satisfied with how this piece turned out, as I think it’s an excellent illustration on why I’ve mostly given up trying to write nature poetry these days… There are many reasons for that, but perhaps one of the biggest is that the instinctive smooth flow is simply not there anymore. At best, I tend to instead get a messy, thick and muddy trickle—such as this piece, for example. Still, even in the mud, you can occasionally find a few pretty stones.

This piece comes from several inspirations. The first and most important are the old notions that, while our ancestors might have tamed the wolf, and eventually turned him into the dog, it’s pretty much accepted that the African Wildcat (which became the so-called ‘domestic’ cat), tamed itself. Indeed, there are a number of videos on YouTube, which tend to bear this out, particularly ones, which show ‘non-domesticated’ African Wildcats that often start hanging around safari camps, especially if they get fed. One video in particular, shows a big, battle-scarred tomcat that hangs around a safari camp in Botswana, and will rub against peoples’ legs, meowing for attention and food, just like any other alley cat that knows he’s on to a good thing. As a dear friend of mine, who watched that video said: ‘It’s like the cat simply showed up with the attitude: Hey, I’m a cat! Give me stuff!’

Similar to this, is the situation in River Legacy Park in Arlington TX, where many of the local bobcats have become so habituated to humans, that they now appear to be semi-tame, although they’re not quite at the point, where they’ll allow themselves to be petted. A few videos show people trying to do the usual: ‘Kitty kitty kitty!’, and who promptly get rewarded with a snarl and a hiss if they get too close.

This same aforementioned friend also happens to live on a large piece of property with its own population of bobcats, coyotes and other local wildlife, and as things have turned out, they have apparently decided that his stone patio is a wonderful place to eat their freshly-caught dinners. And why not, since it’s nice and clean, like the stone slabs where they feed the lions and tigers in most zoos, and it also is a wide open space with good visibility all around. Often, he’ll find the remains of mice and rabbits on the stones in the morning, and he eventually put up game cameras to capture some really nice pictures of the nighttime bobcat and coyote visits.

The final inspiration for this piece comes from an odd dream that he told me about, where he saw little offerings laid out on every stone on that sacred patio, save one, where the big male bobcat could sit down and pronounce his verdict on the tributes.

With regards to pop culture mentions within the piece, I have referenced Love & Rockets' 1987 song "No New Tale to Tell", which was on their album: Earth, Sun, Moon.