
Poem: Me and My Cat

How to be a Professor, Educational Consulting, and My Writing
My poems, written through the years (so far).
Small Town Rainy Night
A warm November evening –
Rain drizzled roads
Streetlights trying through fog
The vital roar of the river behind me.
Lonely footsteps trod back
From the general store
Where the town’s sole neon light
And pinball machine
Awaken the otherwise drowsy street.
The in-between-ness –
Leaves all gone
Snow not yet come,
All set in a mood of reflection.
The melancholy of the night.
From my window,
The hum of a truck
Getting closer, closer,
Drowns the night sounds
The wrenching gears
cry out as it hugs the curve,
Then puffs up the hill, away.
Silence returns.
Then the night sounds
Again, reach my ears;
Rushing water,
A fog-shrouded moan,
Dribbles of rain.
A small mew at my window.
My cat comes home.
Copyright w.c. kasten, 1976, all rights reserved
Written in Frankfort, Maine
Please Don’t Say Goodbye
Please don’t say goodbye
I can’t take it one more time
Just let me go
Say “I’ll see you later” and
Leave it at that.
Please don’t say goodbye
That’s all I’ve heard for days
From Each person that I love
These sad and tender moments
Hurt too much.
Please don’t say goodbye,
I’ve loved this place so much
And had so many special friends
That you’re part of my life forever.
How can it be that it’s so right
To go and yet so hard?
How long will it take to
Build the kind of life
I’ve loved here in a whole new place far away?
Let me drive away just like it’s any other day.
Spare me the beautiful speeches
And the loss of words.
I already know that you care –
My tears attest to that.
Just let me go,
And please, please, don’t say goodbye
I walked out into the bright morning with Laura.
Her blond curls bouncing in the sunlight
As she tottered and ran down the path from our door;
falling a little along the way
but picking herself up
wiping the grit from her hands
on her blue jeans
and continuing on…
Until the first flower box.
Laura had to stop and smell the flowers.
First the orange ones.
I lifted her carefully,
her middle balanced on my arm,
her nose to the blossoms.
I put her down and continued on our way.
But Laura had to know if the next ones, the yellow ones,
smelled differently.
So again, I lifted her.
I tried to hold her still
while her tiny hands cupped
around the soft petals.
She leaned her head down
And smelled a yellow one.
In my hurry to get on my way,
I might have missed the flowers,
but for her-
Perhaps, I thought,
I, too, should stop and smell the flowers.
Wendy C. Kasten, 1981
All rights reserved.