Away Into The Wide World Poem by Gert Strydom

My golden ginger yellow eyed cat
went away
and it’s three days
that he’s already gone.

I wonder where
he is wandering
and miss
his praying eyes
and the gifts
that he brings to me.

It’s as if his white and black friend
knows something,
but not how
to express it
and at times
jumps from a tree
and comes to call me
and I cannot
find Musso anywhere.

It’s for him another thing
to have to move
and for the first time
to be locked out
and not being allowed
in the house

but choices I do not have
in connection with this
but to have
my animals still
or to say forever goodbye.

With the first rain
the dog Sasja
is wet at the window
and Musso
is busy
splashing water from his fur

and in my heart
and in my soul
there is a knife
that cuts right through me
while I hear
them moaning and wailing
and sometimes,
I also want
to go away into the wide world.

Still I pray for him
and do not want him
to suffer somewhere
and I wish
to have him back again.

[Note: I found him this afternoon (after writing the poem) in the storm water drain next to the road, from where he couldn’t get out. He replied when I called him and I had to lift and move concrete blocks with a crowbar to get him out.]