Nature Tells

She had crept into the shed and wedged herself into its darkest recess. I‘d lifted her before, despite her weak protests, and lain her on my bed. I desired to comfort her. I wished to hear her purr one last night. I longed to be with her at the end. But she had once again made her way here, to this dark place. I called to her softly; she answered weakly…plaintively.

Nature tells what to do. My father told me of the time he had a hernia, his body commanded him in the most imperative of ways, due not to pain, nor the discomfort, to lie down. I stepped from the shed, uncertain how to act. Turning, I looked back through the entrance and in toward her dark resting place.

There is a drawing by the Japanese artist Ando Hiroshige which portrays a view from within a home through a window to a landscape beyond. On the sill, is perched a cat, peering outward. The cat, perched between two worlds, the domestic and the wild, seems to invite the viewer to join it in its contemplation of nature beyond.

She wanted to lie, unmolested, in the darkness. She wished to be in a place that smelled of mice, of dust, of nature. I gently closed the door and wandered, aimlessly, mindlessly, about my yard. I awoke in the flower garden. I knelt down…and after a brief rest, I rose…with a pick in my hand.