The Morning #SOLC15 - 3/14

     It is a perfect, calm morning.  The sky has finally cleared and the full morning sun filters through the glass paned door.  The cat, yellow-blonde with white tipped paws and tail, not quite laying, but not standing either, hovers in a patch of warm sunlight.  The birds outside have captured her full attention, her ears twitching this way and that with each new chip or twitter.  Birds of all shapes and sizes fill the grassy green lawn.  There are fat doves strutting about under the shade of the sprawling branches of the only tree in the yard.  Finches and sparrows flit about, calling to each other, landing on small bell-shaped feeder, stuffing themselves on seeds and shucking the shells to the ground below.  Some are red-chest, or yellow; others appear to be simple brown feathered sparrows but, at closer inspection, are covered in the most intricate designs with speckles of white, all shades of browns, and streaks of pitch black, as if they have been composed of carefully molded slabs of bark from all varieties of trees.

     The cat inches ever-so-slightly closer to the door, her white paws making no sound, to more carefully examine the birds and plot their demise.  "If I could just slip under this crack," she thinks, "they are exactly where I want them.  They won't even know I am here until it is too late."
     As she stands to peer out the window, the sunlight catches the top of her golden head, and illuminates her fine fur, her elegant whiskers.  The glint from her well-groomed fur must have been seen by the little feathered snacks, carelessly hopping about just on the other side of the door, for as soon as she stands, the little snacks all fly away.

     She sulks back to her patch of warm sun to wait, and start again.  Meanwhile, a cup of tea steams quietly on the low table in front of me; I turn the thick, creamy pages of my book, the only sound in an otherwise quiet room.  The other occupants of the house breathe in the deep, even cadence of sleep at the end of a long week.  The dog snores on the couch, unaware that the cuddly friend he has been searching for is finally so distracted with little birds, he could easily walk up beside her and get a good whiff of her curious golden fur that looks so soft, so different from his own black and white, without receiving a swipe from her needle-sharp claws.  Instead, he dreams, woofling quietly every so often, and twitching his paws in what is probably the best chase of his life.

The clock ticks the minutes away.  It has been a perfect morning.