Kitty updates today! I was feeling a pull toward something different when I sat down to write last night, so I went with it. What ended up happening was I wrote about Nounours and Nenette in haiku. It was a fun change of kitty-update pace, plus I’ve been thinking it’s kind of sad that I’ve written so few poems since getting my M.F.A. in Creative Writing with a Poetry concentration.

If you’re not into haiku or poetry in general, just scroll on down… I added a paragraph of non-haiku kitty updates under the last pic.

Haiku 1: Cats

(by Kristi Garboushian)

1.

Bedtime ritual –
the voyeur of espresso,
wicker ball, a lyre.

Nenette cleaning her feet at bedtime.

2.

His roaring soft self
to curl, melt the desert bright
in pastoral glow.

Nounours in the nest Daddy made.

3.

A swing, a feather
like a river marring stars:
Possibility.

Nenette deciding which toy.

4.

The round vacancy –
morning routine, following
the feral other.

Nenette and Nounours enjoying a sunbeam.

In plain speech, Nounours and Nenette have been happily snuggling down in their special nighttime beds that we put together for them: Nenette on her padded bar-stool (in the bedroom corner next to my side of the bed) that I’d swathed in t-shirts I’d worn, and Nounours in the couch nest that Callaghan made with a serape and random cushions.

Nenette still loves her toy corner in the living room more than anything! She studies her toy basket and paws at the toys she wants, lifting them out with her teeth.

On weekend mornings, I’m home to watch both kitties winter sunbathing in beams on the floor.

They’re doing well.