Ode to my Morale Officer

We meet at the break of my day 

together at your water bowl, faithful feline.

There you sit like a wary sentinel 

watching me with guarded hope.

“Will my human remember me?  

Will she treasure my needs and soothe my thirsty tongue?  

Will she refresh my parched throat again one more day?”

I faithfully tend to our morning ritual, 

fearful as I am of your ruthless wrath

taken out on me in corners or edges of rooms 

with presents I fail to value as you do.

So, aware of the consequences of mindless forgetfulness,

I carefully rinse the small round bowl each day

Filling it with filtered water

Two ice cubes, and on a special occasion, three or even four.

The small cold rectangles clink and pop as they greet the tepid water.

Some mornings I walk away, perplexed, and alarmed at the 

ease with which you disregard my offering

electing instead to return to the couch for your day’s labor of slumber

while I continue with human rituals

Strong coffee, Dominican-style, obligatory dull oatmeal, 

gentle stretching, essential bathing and dressing, 

Precious crumbs of prayer while taking up the day’s work

All this as you while away the hours devising new tortures for

the mindless human who holds in human paws your very existence.

How often I lament the restrictions and limits

 your continued existence impose on my daily life and space

While forgetting the companionship, the comfort,

the faithfulness you have embodied

over these last 14 years,

wrenched from your native Santo Domingo

your small body cruelly stuffed under the seat 

during that plane ride of horror

Transported to the alien valley of Virginia,

 then on to rolling gentle hills of Ohio

Where to next, you wonder, with anxious trepidation?

Wherever we go, I suppose we must go together 

Friends, partners, love/hate adversaries, 

Companions forever, bound by love