Diving From the Tobermory Rocks

When I see my cat propel her body skyward

on to my neighbour’s fence

and with one more leap

reach the top of his bungalow roof

to escape the angry jaws of a perplexed canine,

I know that there is a secret pact

between earth, air and cat

that offers invisible pathways of escape;

when I see my cat languishing twelve inches from a neighbour’s dog,

held there by a long chain,

stretching and yelping,

straining to maul it

and the cat, uninterested and disdainful,

cleaning her deceptive face with her sacred paws,

I know that she thinks she will live forever;

but when I see you hurling yourself from the high Tobermory rocks,

spinning your body in mid air,

plunging into the frigid waters sixty feet below,

I remind myself that you are not cat

but for an instant must have lived within its protected, invisible barriers.