MOON
by William Jay Smith
I have a white cat whose name is Moon;
He eats catfish from a wooden spoon,
And sleeps till five each afternoon.
Moon goes out when the moon is bright
And sycamore trees are spotted white
To sit and stare in the dead of night.
Beyond still water cries a loon,
Through mulberry leaves peers a wild baboon,
And in Moon’s eyes I see the moon.
SOURCE: “Moon” appears in William Jay Smith’s collection Laughing Time: Collected Nonsense (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1980).
ART: “Beauty in White” by DanceswithCats. Cards available at zazzle.com.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: William Jay Smith, age 95, served as the nineteenth Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress from 1968 to 1970. Born in Louisiana, and brought in Missouri, Smith received his A.B. and M.A. from Washington University in St. Louis, and continued his studies at Columbia University and Oxford University as a Rhodes Scholar. Smith was a poet in residence at Williams College from 1959–1967 and taught at Columbia University from 1973 until 1975. He serves as the Professor Emeritus of English literature at Hollins University. Smith is the author of ten collections of poetry, including two finalists for the National Book Award. He has been member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters since 1975.
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