A POEM BY MAY SWENSON

                      

                WAITING FOR IT


          My cat jumps to the window sill

          and sits there still as a jug.

          He's waiting for me, but I cannot be

          coming, for I am in the room.


          His snout, a gloomy V of patience,

          pokes out into the sun.

          The funnels of his ears expect

          to be poured full of my footsteps.


          It, the electric moment, a sweet

          mouse, will appear; at his gray

          eye's edge I'll be coming home

          if he sits on the window ledge.


          It is here, I say, and call him

          to my lap. Not a hair

          in the gap of his ear moves.

          His clay gaze stays steady.


          That solemn snout says: It

          is what is about to happen, not

          what is already here.


                                   ---May Swenson

                                         (1913-1989)



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