The path strewn with hurdles and gravels
40 years is a long way to travel
Two souls sewn with love and peace
Two hearts dipped in bliss
Two minds not always in same strength
But determined within to walk the length.

40 years of building the nest
Patience and endurance put to hard test
Before one day the saplings become a tree
Heart upon heart two becomes three
Through fall and rise and sun downpour
Years flew as the three becomes four.

It's no easy work to raise a family
In all sadness live strong and happily
Blocks are thrown doubts are cast
Moments of life try to break the trust
But we didn't bow continued the thrive
A grownup family now, we number five.

For a time, this morning my
inner yard and porch looked
like a festive circus of delight.
Three outside cats joined for
a time by my inside feline put
on quite a show. Running and
jumping into the air, chasing
anything that flew in the ether
or quickstepped through the
lawn or dirt. Insects on the wing,
Shrews scooting through the grass.
Lightning fast furballs even chasing
one another around bushes, plants,
up trees and down again and around
the water fountain, like a pod of excited
children happily at play in a city park,
unbridled morning exuberance in the
most delightful way!

Perhaps, maybe, just for my enjoyment
or so I would like to think. But in reality
it was merely happy cat behavior on display
just for their own hedonistic amusement.

How many wonderful canine companions
have come through my life, I hesitate to count,
each one a dear friend that brightened my
daily existence, taught me lessons no human
could, faithfully loved me with committed
devotion and asked for so very little in return.
Yes, it is true, dogs are man's best friend.

As wee kittens she and her brother
were gifted to us from a neighboring
farm up the hill, a pair from a litter of
feral felines, welcomed on our place
as mousers and ratters.

Mostly they lived around the barn,
strolled and policed the property as
their domain. The male was always
by his disposition aloof, had no need
of close human contact, content to be
independent and on his own.

His sister was more inclined to draw
nearer, curious and at times amenable
to a pat on the head, or a small dish of
cat food. And the bearer of gifts in the
form of parts of the remains of her kills
deposited on my porch door threshold.
Proof I suppose of her doing her job,
or in gratitude for my feeding her.

One day her brother was predator taken,
though she stayed on her job, she became
a more frequent visitor to my porch, with
her litter mate gone perhaps she had become
lonely and needed companionship.

It has been a few years since the loss of
her brother and now she comes everyday
morning and evening, or whenever I call
her in. Running full speed to eagerly rub
against my legs, or flop down atop my feet,
wanting a belly rub, purring and ever so
glad to see me. For all her given affection,
she is not a fan of being picked up and held.
It offends, maybe threatens her half wild nature.

No where to be seen, yet when I go out to the
road to get the mail, to the barn or orchard
before I walk 30 feet, there she is running close
behind me, as if she had been waiting just for
that very occasion.

She is over ten now getting old like me,
she is around my inner yard or the porch
most of the time, I even let her inside the
house from time to time, she and my inside
cat, get along fine. Drink from the same
water bowl, eat side by side. They enjoy
playing together, I think he is smitten by
her as only a neutered male cat can be.

But always at some point, as if she hears
a distant calling, she goes to the door and
let's me know she is ready to return to her
life outside. Instincts are difficult to ignore.

There is no finer fresh breeze
to be had then those mingled
tropical scents of open seas,
coconut palms, flowering plants,
clean white sands and fresh caught
fish frying over an open fire, while
reclined upon a near deserted
pristine island beach with new
convivial friends recently met.

What is this mania of over the top
self-absorption that appears to be
running amok, this social dementia
annoying egotism, where it seems
everyone is constantly posing and
publicly auditioning for attention.

Cellphones and Social media two
of the abetting culprits, deluding
the populace that constant selfies
a star does make. Get a blog, be a
celebrity, go on TV? Self-promotion
and crass Exhibitionism has become
a vexing preoccupation. Striving for
LIKES and Followers sending and
Trending, seeking the adulations of
strangers out in the cloud that they
will never actually meet.

What happened to modesty, or
self-restraint? Have we all lost
our minds? When did being an
average normal well-adjusted
human become not enough.
When did humility become
undesirably passe? Are we all
truly that insecure?

From youth, not unlike the love
I received from my family, I surmised,
that extended love might be everywhere.
With artless, open arms and heart,
I embraced this simple notion.
In time, sadly this childish wish
was honed to a hard truth by maturation.

Friends and loves come
and go, fleeting in heart,
and committed soul.
Unreliably, flowing in and ebbing out,
like deep undulations of an ocean,
all too often with sneaker waves
that pull us under. Breakers pushing
our ship onto the rocks, in a sea
of shallow unfulfilled expectations.
Encounters becoming disappointment,
with too many frogs kissed.

My educated suspicion is,
beyond our family of blood kin,
Faithful canine love is the only
other "truly committed devotion"
we are likely to get.

In the end, that may well be enough.
Perspective wisdom can be a bitter lesson.