When I Feel Helpless

A black-and-white photograph of a person’s hand, partially obscured by the paws of a cat. The black cat is nearly invisible in the shadows surrounding the hand, but its face must be behind the hand because the whiskers from one side of its face are visible in the light that illuminates the hand. The cat’s paws — white, in contrast to its black legs — are pulling the person’s hand toward its body.

If I can do nothing more,
I go out the back door and sit on the steps
where the tuxedo cat rubs my leg

and I look for the holy.
If you call it life or god or mystery,
it’s ok; it’s all in the Thesaurus of Sacred Things.

When trapped in the grimace of chaos
and pain, I can kneel here in the grass
at night amidst the sinuous dance

of moths or night-wing bats, especially
when the moon is a full bowl of holiness,
or maybe I smell the first rain after drought

bedding down in the cricketing field, and then I know.
Meet me there where we can do nothing much
together but think and breathe holiness and
pet the white-whisker cat.