'THE CAT'S EYES & THE PENKNIFE' : A NEW POEM...

The Cat’s Eyes & The Penknife

I had been bought a penknife, I recall:

An inoffensive tool and quite small;

But though I attempted to sharpen pencils with it,

There wasn’t much success at all…

When driven to the countryside one Sunday afternoon,

I clutched that knife in my hand,

Until our progress was severely disrupted

When a Hunt rampaged ‘cross the land.

We stepped from the car as the horde approached,

But I strolled back down the lane to find

A dislodged white casement for cat’s eyes,

I’d just spotted some fifty yards behind.

I found it on a grass verge, I scooped it up

And quickly to the car I returned;

Only two of four reflective eyes remained in the chamber,

But having secured it, my stomach soon churned…

My parents, my uncle and aunt all frowned,

Yet I so wanted to keep hold of my prize

And I began to hack the eyes from the rubber,

Which were so terribly difficult to prise…

I released them, I kept them, I have them today,

Although I was sternly chastised;

I no longer possess that meagre penknife

But I do have a pair of cat’s eyes…

PeteRay

November 2016

True story.

My uncle owned the car; my parents and I were collected and driven out of town sometimes on a Sunday and on this occasion, a Hunt traversed not only fields but also the lane we were driving along. 

Traffic was held up, but I had noticed, as we had slowed down, one of the rubber casements for the centre of the road’s ‘cat’s eyes’, which when driven over, pressed down and cleaned the glass spheres.

The case was mangled but I strolled back along the lane, found it and cut the spheres away with my otherwise useless penknife in the back of my uncle’s car.

I had found treasure more than fifty years ago…