Monastery Cats

Crystal is the Eye

and Paradise the Sound

in Ninoshka’s column, high

where purring, she’ll be Found

Gazing as she does,

where robes flutter through

Each stone, a path loves

of man’s spiritual truths

Thus shines the moon,

and if a heart’s clean,

Then preciously swoon

Shall it do, before her scene

A monk’s heart left

Sweet womanly comfort’s draw,

To pay, greatly, sin’s debt,

But God’s blessings have a law:

To drive off rats

in a tender, loving boast

through monastery cats,

as prowlers, at most!

Yet of rodents, I don’t speak,

Rather, of sorrows in man,

These cats, so meek,

kiss all that they can

when intellect hits,

and thoughts so stray,

as to tempt what sits

in struggling hearts’ dismay.

But these, so well

Does Tibor thus lift,

as a playful, small bell

he swipes in hourly shift

Rapid, his head, turns at each sound

While jumping, his eyes, make wide, make eager

such energy, he sings, as effortless, loud

these yelps and meows, by which he is Leader

​

of monastery cats, and monks’ dear joy,

and cynicism’s death, and pilgrims’ laughs

when sudden, he flies, and executes ploys

to remind us all, of God’s humorous gaffs

Now in stalks Lena, as sneaky she loves

to pounce toward Tibor, and begin the play

What contest and thrust, with which all doves

Scatter quickly and frantic, when screams this fray!

His tail, her meat, her stomach, his treat

as burrows his head in scratching fur,

and rolling, and quick, do they, this feat:

to scatter about, so that hearts confer

their heat to the sound, where winds, through, whistle,

each crevice and crack Stefan, sullen, stalks

as blue, piercing eyes watch, still, the thistle

where darkness commands, and all’s bright, balks!

Caressing, his fur, a black smooth hue,

old age sits about, and ponders such years

where often he wished for songs, in lieu,

of odd, strange sounds, for which men knew fears!

“Listen, I speak,” his eyes so exclaim

for any with a soul, to know his pain,

“many are you, but one knows fame

in this holy soil, and of course, my mane

knew dirt, loved sun, but eschewed this game

where about we run, but never we came

when mankind’s sins too heavily stayed

‘tween these walls, sacred, which, for hearts, tame

such passions and terrors, before such, cats complain

that only we love, what’s gentle, and sane

See to it, now, that here you come

Only for your soul, to come undone

That soft, our fur, may comfort some

to know what’s sweet, what wisely runs

the will of men, when righteous, the Son

so loves mankind,

and even cats,

in their

Fun.”

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R.V. Smith: “Monastery Cats”, 06-20-25

© 2025 by Ryan Vincent Smith