Reflection in a Golden Eye

(for Ward's Piper)

Though you are not mine,

holding you, I hold myself.

How has this happened?

Dearest of youthful 

cream-colored cats,

I am old and yet

I see myself in you.

I feel myself in you.

I remember myself in you.

Is it merely that

I’ve known from experience

your supple innocence?

You are the definition of adorable;

precisely how I managed 

to stay alive;

otherwise, who would have cared

what happened to me?

My own adoption not withstanding,

my place in the world 

was without hierarchy.

Our blondness is as mythological 

as endless youth,

both precious and mineral. 

Your feeble pre-verbal speech,

reminds me of life

before words absorbed joy.

I wonder what you are thinking

when you’re left alone?

You, who are as curious 

about everything as nothing.

You are a prayer

on four lithe paws

blessing this quiet room

with your fierce watchfulness.

What do you make of a world

where you are so ill-equipped

to be anything other than

you are?

I fear you are

at the mercy of everything,

as you meet disaster

with the same curiosity

as delight.

For that alone

I adore you.

Peter Valentyne

August 11, 2019