Bella

I bundled her gently onto the back seatOf the car, she in her little cage,Silent, wrapped up in herself, andFearful of a world unknown.Deaf to my whispering wordsAs my wife drove the three of us home,She mewed ever so softly.Then a room with windows –The first for many weeks away fromHer cubicle in the Animal Rescue Centre.Her eyes were huge as she stared,Like a man on the Santa Maria,On a strange new, shining world.When she left her cage on the kitchen floorAn open door to the dark beckoned –Inside the cave of the cardboard boxRefuge from the strange smells,The noise and the light.

But fear, even for a cat, can be cast offLike fur – and swept away by timeAnd circumstance.She moves now with grace and charm,Leaping onto window ledges,Peering with absolute intent on a lawnWhere birds strut and forage.Gone is the shivering nervous little thingRobbed of its nature and power,Born again now, to purr and mutilate -Brave and beautiful.