Farewell, Sweet Dude

In the thin March light, the orange one departs —
his fur a flicker of morning,
his song still trembling in the rafters.
He was a difficult teacher,
a philosopher in disarray,
arguing with the silence at 3 A.M.
as though the universe had personally offended him.

We loved him as we love the weather —
inconstantly, but with awe.
He was the storm’s eye and the quiet porch after it,
the claw and the purr in one breath.
Never hit the box, but spun
with wild abandon.
He knew something about being —
how to take up space unashamed,
how to don a ruff without apology,
how to demand the world’s attention,
even in its darkest hour.

Now, gone to whatever wild field waits beyond the stars,
his song uncoils into the night air —
a long, strange hymn
to hunger, to home, to having once been seen.

And we remain,
Finch, Albatross, and Bluebird,
and the givers of his other names,
Shiloh and Frank,
listening for the faint, irreverent echo
of that ancient meow,
and the eternal protest against stillness.