Cat Moving Kittens
Even as we reached
Down to touch them
Where we’d found them
Shut-eyed and trembling
Under a straw bale
In the haymow, that
She would move them
That night under cover
Of darkness, and that
By finding them
We were making certain
We wouldn’t see them again
Until we saw them
Crouching under the pickup
Like sullen teens, having gone
As wild by then as they’d gone
Still in her mouth that night
She made a decision
Any mother might make
Upon guessing the intentions
Of the state: to go and to
Go now, taking everything
You love between your teeth.
By Austin Smith, who lives in rural Illinois and is an acute observer of the world at hand.This poem is from his book Flyover Country, published by Princeton University Press.
About poetry on BerkshireLinks
Adding a poetry category to BerkshireLinks.com comports with what we had in mind when we started our first web magazine, Berkshire Spectrum, way back in 1996. Today, one could expect to generate some interest by publishing poetry on a website that has an audience of thousands of persons interested in the Berkshires arts and entertainment scene.
The key feature, initially at least, will be the inclusion of the American Life in Poetry project, which makes available to us and practically anybody else, as indicated here:
American Life in Poetry is a free weekly column for newspapers and online publications featuring a poem by a contemporary American poet and a brief introduction to the poem by Ted Kooser. The sole mission of this project is to promote poetry, and we believe we can add value for newspaper and online readers by doing so. There are no costs or obligations for reprinting the columns, though we do require that the text of the column be reproduced without alteration, along with the complete copyright, permissions and credit information, exactly as supplied with each column.