Empty Suitcase

The cat snuggles down

into my empty suitcase,

out to fill for a trip. She

knows something’s up.

It’s a bed, she insists.

A warm place, even an

instrument of stasis. I

let her nestle there,

passing on to other

bustling that needs

doing, done. That I’ve

lived out of a suitcase

won’t perhaps make

my obituary. Not much

does. Yet it is the things

we’ve lugged place

to place; it is the cat

let sleep that is,

was, what we were.

That old Zen mind

Basho said, “Noble,

noble, not to think of

life when you see

a flash of lightening.”

I say, impossible too

to pack for the long road

and not dwell on passing.