Cat Tree

We will not underestimate the lessons of our fore-beasts.
Their deep-clawed teachings, hieroglyphics
in the tattered frayed ropework, that loops itself around our family tree.
They knew the frilled and fierce bones of restraint as we do now.
Thrilled, and trilled the secret languages of half-closed eyes.
Followed life with agile ears, primed against the gruff world and its blows.
Battled with the stalking snakes that followed them, the coils of their own spines.
Silent, upright, felt the blood of Bastet quicken under twitching skin.
Slept, so germinating wisdom, never quite unconscious to a threat.
Holding a gentle judgement and contempt
in the ancient amber and the aquamarine wet of their fixed gazes.
Anthropomorphise them, and you reduce them to a lower form of life.
Demean their evolution. We are vile, but Homo Sapiens is worse.
Our shine, our shadows flicker always here around the corners of your constructs.
Knowing more than you have ever understood. We haunt your heat,
Share scraps of respect, whiskered antennae
Always alert for madness.
We know your history.