Two Sonnets

The Hunter

A tangled heap of limbs, a buried nose,
One open eye alert for those who dare.
A careless sound brings end to sweet repose,
Our heroine slips softly from her lair.
A silken shadow slinks across the night,
On silent paws she steals toward her goal.
This warrior queen is eager for the fight,
No mercy will contaminate her soul.
A patient pause, her prey exposed at last.
Instinct is all. The queen prepares to rise.
A reckoning. A leap. Her jaws close fast.
Triumphantly she gorges on her prize.
“You’re up then, lazybones,” she hears him say.
The cat, her supper done, just walks away.

The Snowdrop

In silent summer solitude you sleep,
Secure below the fruitful, sun-blessed earth.
Through autumn’s waning days, still hidden deep,
You wait until your moment of rebirth.
Beneath a shroud of white, the bens are lost.
Gales rend a restless sky, mist cloaks the past.
The silent land grows grey, the wind breathes frost.
How can your flimsy life such spite outlast?
Bright spears of green defy the endless night,
Thrust hopeful fingers up to winter sun.
A fragile bell rings changes of delight
To herald spring: the yearly battle’s won.
Too soon you fall to ruin and decay,
But you will rise, unbowed, another day.