A Basket of Hopefulness

It was a new place, I wouldn’t call
it home, I wouldn’t call it a jail either,
it was more like purgatory, a place for
thoughts to rise again and flock within
our minds, memories of distant places
we used to be, sometimes the red-tailed
hawk would scream, and we could all tell
the same story, the caged anguish,
hugging freedom from within bars and hoping
it would steal you away. The grey cat was always
silent, it bothered everyone, all cathedrals
within us have sermons, but he wouldn’t say
a thing. I was not that talkative, but I was not
quiet also, the smell of my original master
still lingered around me, sometimes I would
bark in my sleep thinking I heard his call, but I would
then wake up in this place and be met with the same
eyes that seemed to understand what I couldn’t say,
we who are here don’t mind this place, we wonder
and scatter the burdens of times gone among ourselves
and serve each wound with a lick and a kiss, a paw on the back,
a snuggle for the night, we are souls not yet lost, paraded here,
a basket of hopefulness.