Yet again I am uncertain which animal is mine.
The birdhouse and barn have blown away
in the tall winds and dust.
My kittens and horses are wild and the soft hay is gone.
It is the most loved gone.
The flown gate and high lamp burrow
to kindling and rust.
The wind has a will to summon its own.
My companions have tired and the soft days are gone.
Waiting for My Father’s Bus in Mombasa
I won’t look for the locusts
stalking slowly like rickshaws
along the high power wires,
or hear their shrill-pitched whirring
stirred by the singing current.
The white sun breathes out and in,
and a curve in the road moves.
I won’t watch for your slow bus
or the traveling shadows
above long Nyali Road,
or hear your high-pitched whistling,
the evening’s first stridence.
Catherine Connell is a university administrator in metropolitan Boston, Massachusetts. contact