I hear the last set of crazy happy jazz from the Museum.
One of the four or five courtyard black cats
just pegged one of the birds around the neighbor's feeder.
I didn't see it pounce.
The cat toys with the sparrow. The bird
is alive. Could I do something?

I yell.
Ron comes out when I shout
and says that's the way it happens.
The bird is still alive
on the other side of the courtyard.
Earlier, I shooed a brown dove
gathering my dill for a nest.

The sparrow is dead now. The cat
thinks its pushing and batting are signs the bird is alive.
The brown dove returns.
I hear the last encore.

by Catherine Daly

Catherine Daly lives in Los Angeles, across the street from the La Brea Tar Pits, with her fiancé and a small parrot, Poe. She has a software development company called e.g. Her poetry is published extensively online (linked to her website http://members.aol.com/cadaly). This is her first poem in Moondance.