CAT fans will be enchanted by a new anthology devoted to the animals (it's suggested that Caledonian poets love their characteristic thrawnness!).
The litany of distinguished contributors runs from Robert Henryson and Allan Ramsay to Edwin Morgan and Norman MacCaig. Here is one of Iain Crichton Smith's feline profiles (Scottish Cats, edited by Hamish Whyte, Birlinn, £9.99).
THE CAT
The cat noses among my
books.
It nudges Homer.
Its wedge-shaped head nuzzles Tolstoy
to scratch at its fleas.
It pushes its head past Jane Austen searching for mice.
Later it sits on my knees
serene in the warm sunshine,
then in a trice
it runs out the window and climbs up a fresh green tree.
You too were a god, weren't you, cat,
tall, aloof, ghostly, impassive as Zeus?
You too are the justice of your own grass,
the doom of the mole and the mouse.
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