Take a cat.
In life it is only a cat
but an image flickers,
prickles my imagination:
a busy nose, a spray of whiskers
and I decide to frame
this cat in words; a poetic creation.
A thought cat? If it needs a name.
On a page, it may change
colour or movement.
Crow black or slow black?
And how to pin down
the sly/feral/patient/indifferent
grace of its frown?
And so, filtered through me,
the cat on the page pads
away from reality.

Take a reader.
He/she loves/hates absorbs/debates
the cat.
And likes the poem. Or maybe not.
Reviews the imagery
and a response is hewn
from surroundings, history.
And thus, the cat is spun
through six hundred experiences:
each a seed for further translation.
Carried on fertile torrents
of manipulation.
The Bible writers were wrong
about what happened in Eden,
showing innocence was gone,
the apple eaten.
The fig leaf was not the test.
It did not insinuate, corrupt, protect.
Since Adam's weak willed 'yes',
it is words that we erect
between each other
and our souls.