Wednesday 9 May 2012

I see you



I see you, says the shivering cat
to the wind that ruffles her fur.
Your fingers are blue, your face is fat
and you rush around without a hat.
I see you, says the shivering cat,
and turns her back and will not purr.
I see you, says the shivering cat,
to the wind that ruffles her fur.


Picking Katie up from a party the other day, her friend's mother said "Do you know a poet called  John Terry ?" 

I admitted that I do indeed know him.

They'd been Googling him, and found my pictures on Flickr. 

They told me the story about why they'd been Googling for John.

Ten years ago, young L had asked "Can cats see the wind?" 

This question was passed on to John, and he wrote this poem.

It is a nice story, and a nice poem, so I did this picture for it. The weather vane with a gudgeon on it is in Bradford on Avon, on the roof of the lock-up in the middle of the bridge over the Avon; I got the idea for that from Bella, who painted another weather vane in B-on-A the other day.

13 comments:

  1. Superb poem superbly illustrated. Before I got to the bit about the B-on-A gudgeon I thought that was a perch perched on top.

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  3. Ha-ha - brilliant, Dru. The idea of putting the fish in the wind above the cat is inspired. Did you visit Bradford-on-Avon virtually or for real?

    Sorry, I had to delete the first comment as I said something really silly.

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  4. lovely!
    Cats aren't keen on having their fur ruffled by wind, are they!

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    2. me neither, come to that, Gwynneth! -it only takes a breath of wind for me to adopt the through-hedge-backward look...

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    3. my grandmother used to call that "looking like the wreck of the Hesperus" !

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  5. Thank you, Thomas! I agree; for a gudgeon, it is a bit perchlike

    It was a virtual visit, Bella. I was really quite sruck by the weather vane, as it were, when you pointed it out- and then when John's poem came to light, it seemed a good place for the cat to be. (We were in B on A a while back for the poetry, but it was too dark to see the gudgeon)http://www.flickr.com/photos/belvedere/7019231763/

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  6. That look like a very angry cat.

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  7. Nice story, nice poem, nice illustration. I'm sorry I don't visit here more, having gotten so much inspiration here. Today I ordered RS Thomas's last collection of poems. Thanks, Dru.

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  8. a sullen and resentful cat, perhaps? Cats don't seem to do guilty and hangdog like dogs do, do they, come to think of it

    Thank you, Larry; and nice to see you again!

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  9. Lovely on all levels ... apart from the one where the cat is, obvs.

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  10. I love the cat's "Fuck. You. All" expression.

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