Author's Animal Antics - Adele Geras

Author's Animal Antics is a new regular blog feature here at Sarah's Book Reviews where I'm very excited to have some fantastic authors come and chat to us about their pets.  I'm thrilled to introduce the lovely Adele Geras as my guest today...

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I wrote this poem in 1999 when our beloved cat, Mimi, was still alive. She died in 2005 and we remember her with much love. She was a very beautiful tabby cat with a white shoulder, and, as her name suggests, the embodiment of elegance and grace. She was a completely useless hunter and quite often used to position herself as if to pounce but it never came to anything. Someone told us we were feeding her too well, but I just think she was both kind gentle.  Every word of what follows is true.

MIMI'S DAY

From her position on the windowsill

she gives the garden her consideration.

Later, both the camellias and the ferns

will undergo a full investigation.

First, she will be a small domestic sphinx

unmoving on the carpet, enigmatic,

thinking: there was a fire here last night

and now it's gone. All life is problematic.

The second serious question of the day

is: where to sleep? Which bed or chair to grace?

The velvet spaces of the chesterfield?

Or should she seek a woolly resting‑place?

They sometimes leave (she thinks) jerseys on beds,

or there's the shawl spread softly on a chair.

Also a cupboard, full of fluffy towels

and gurgling darkness..maybe I'll go there.

She steps into the garden after lunch:

a meal she'd hoped might magically be prawns

but wasn't. She is philosophical.

It is the hour for stalking things on lawns.

Squirrels are jet‑propelled and every bird

annoyingly decides to fly away.

She races up a tree‑trunk, just to show

she might catch something, on some other day

and meanwhile, she'll adopt a watchful pose

on a convenient step, warm in the sun,

until her head grows heavy, droops and falls.

The work of sleepy cats is never done.

The moths come out at night. Then she's awake.

Their grey and blurring wings catch on her claws.

When they are still, she stretches, bends and yawns

and with a sharp pink tongue, tidies her paws.

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Thank you so much for visiting today Adele!  Adele Geras is the author of the fab young adult novel Dido which was released in paperback in the UK in April.  I've just finished reading Dido and will be posting my review later today along with a fantastic giveaway thanks to publisher Random House Children's Books

Find out more about Adele and her work here - Website

For more information about the Author's Animal Antics feature click here