Once, years ago, I saw
the mountain cat. She stepped
from under a cloud
of birch trees and padded
along the edge of the field. When she saw
that I saw her, instantly
flames leaped
in her eyes, it was that
distasteful to her to be
seen. Her wide face
was a plate of gold,
her black lip
curled as though she had come
to a terrible place in the long movie, her shoulders
shook like water, her tail
swung at the grass
as she turned back under the trees,
just leaving me time to guess
that she was not a cat at all
but a lean and perfect mystery
that perhaps I didn’t really see,
but simply understood belonged here
like all the other perfections
that still, occasionally, emerge
out of the last waterfalls, forests,
the last unviolated mountains, hurrying
day after day, year after year
through the cage of the world.