By Brian McClorry, SJ ©
'...there will always be that secret elsewhere..' - Penelope Lively, 'City of the Mind'
Skipping rope shape in pastel white,
Etched in face and tail
By the scent of whatever quivers -
At the end of a lead, a ferret
Stalks the road,
Checks the thin red leather strip,
Leans towards its life,
Paw raised like a fly swat,
Calls for silence to conjure
The secret elsewhere
Where food is live to the tooth
And follies are forgone
There in that cathedral
Whose introibo strikes
Yes I will, yes I will go
From the sea roads in Boscombe
To the shriek inside the earth,
Pray with the Medes and the Persians,
Cultivate my fur -
And all the time we thought
It was a Pekinese.