Lilith, the Invisible Cat

§  Since beginning this blog, each year near Halloween I’ve shared a poem, always supernatural or otherworldly in nature.  I had a tough time continuing with that tradition this year!  §

Since the start of this blog in 2017, it’s been my custom to include some ghostly little poem for Halloween.  I began that tradition using a mysterious story poem that I’d written for youngsters, my great niece and nephew, titled Ghost Kitty Walks.  (They were thrilled when I sent them a print of their homemade storybook, now published on my blog.)

The following year, I continued with my “Second Annual!” Halloween tradition, using another story poem, one that I had written decades ago.  Struggling Home told an engaging supernatural tale.  But it also (as poetry often does for the soul of both author and reader) exorcised some old uneasiness and personal angst.  I’ve always thought it fitting that I began composing that poem to the rhythm of my steps one dark afternoon as I fought my way home through a torrential rainstorm, walking from a distant bus stop to my house.

Bearing those two posts in mind, in 2019 I sifted through my hundreds of unpublished poems  for a verse that I recalled having penned many years ago, Alicia Walks Softly.  This was yet another story poem, the tale of a ghost who walks nightly to weep at the site of her own grave.  It seemed appropriate for Halloween.  I wasted an hour or more poring through old ring binders and loose sheets of paper and computer files, but, unfortunately, could not find it.  I stumbled across countless verses that were indescribably awful (which sort of explains the “unpublished” part). Despite finding all those sad attempts, though, I also discovered a few poems that I had written well at surprisingly young ages.  Nevertheless, hunting for Alicia Walks Softly proved fruitless, and I realized I must have discarded it.  Sadly, I could recall only the first stanza and the final line of the poem–far too little to reconstruct it, even had I the impetus to do so–though perhaps I might, one day, attempt to do just that.

But as I sifted through reams of my old poetry, I came across one that, while definitely neither a story in verse nor a ghost poem, seemed to fit the bill for my 2019 Halloween-themed blog.  Certainly, it spoke to the seasonal topic of Halloween with its references to demons.  This time, though, the poem, Rooms of Darkness, spoke of true demons: the inescapable demons and devils of one’s heart and mind and soul; the demons that can, if we do not grapple with them, haunt us throughout our lifetimes.

Now the Halloween season of 2020 has rolled around to find me once more turning the pages of old-fashioned ring binders and searching through faint memories for something appropriate to this most disturbing of years.  I know very well that I’ve never written anything on the subject of plague…or riots and looting…or the horrific deaths of individuals at the hands of law enforcement…or entrenched racism…or wildfires burning through thousands of acres, leaving whole populations homeless and the earth scorched…or world leaders who threaten the 244-year-old history of the peaceful transference of power. Frightening as those subjects are (and they are a thousand times more terrifying than any supernatural story I’ve ever encountered), I have nothing in my accumulated verse that even remotely touches them.

In consequence, and perhaps hoping to escape some of the dreadfulness that has comprised this sad year, I find myself turning once more to a lighthearted story poem written for my great niece and nephew when they were small.  After all, The Invisible Man was once considered quite a creepy tale, wasn’t it?  So here, to give you a perhaps just the slightest smile in the midst of so much world-wide awfulness, or to provide a little story that you might take pleasure in sharing with the small children in your family is,

Lilith, The Invisible Cat

Small Lilith is a pretty cat,
Impeccable in grey.
Her white shirt front’s immaculate.
She’s dressed up every day

But Lilith is invisible.                Invisible.                                         Invisible.

Small Lilith is invisible.
She hides herself away,
When people come to stay.
When children come to play,
Small Lilith goes away.
She hides there in the closet.
She hides there all the day.

Small Lilith is a fraidy cat.
She doesn’t understand
That she could get soft pets and pats
From gentle, loving hands.

And so she hides in corners dark–
In closets, under beds.
And shivers, shakes and trembles there,
And hangs her little head.

So Lilith stays invisible.             Invisible.                                       Invisible.

Small Lilith stays invisible.
She hides herself away,
When people come to stay.
When children come to play,
Small Lilith goes away.

She hides among the pillows.
She hides there all the day.

The End

May your Halloween be free of both
imagined and this year’s frightfully true terrors.

If you enjoyed this post, you might also like “Ghost Kitty Walks”, published 10/30/2017, “Struggling Home”, from 10/31/2018, or “Rooms of Darkness”, to be found in the Archives from 10/30/2019