I have an album collection
of moments
stray and deliberate;
each dependent
upon time and circumstance;
friends, years attached and bright shiny faces.
There too
are written
words,
paper clipped
in decade stacks,
categorized
and organized,
they lie
on my mind's desk-
like cats
lounging
languidly.
I stroke them-
old friends familiar;
lapping them up like kitten's milk-
others move arthritically
yet close
preening softly.
My album cat ecology
is witness
all together
and separately;
some mute-
some paper purring memories.
My hands stroke all of them
in these photos
fresh and graying
eliciting from me
sighs
coming to me from down the years.
I think of them all
as cats purring.
Lonnie Hicks
http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/cat-album-2/