It was dark midnight, and even after,
and the old timer (me)
was trying to sleep
He was hearing something as if
from afar off...or was it
just a dream?
It seemed like somewhere off in
the universe, shovels were
clanking against hard soil like
a grave was being dug
to bury something
And I was sure that in my dream
I had heard women's voices---
talking, not laughing but intent
on doing a job
Were they perps and evil or just
some run-of-the-mill-conspirators
up to no good
We'd heard all of our lives about how
awful conspirators are
This was all going on in my own backyard
it sounded-like and suddenly I sat
up in my bed...BOLT UPRIGHT!
Whatever perps there were, they were
suspiciously trying to be clandestine
diggers
I thew on my favorite robe over my black
Fruit-of-the-Looms, grabbed my
Irish SHILLELAGH and tippy-toed
to the den door and carefully parted the
drapes...
Oh yes! Not twenty feet away, acrost the
cement block fence two
sober-faced, beautiful women were
carefully and seriously digging
in their own back lawn!
My, my, I knew it was our own dear
neighbors...but up to no-good?
I eased out onto the ice-cold patio
cement and said: "Don't shoot,
it's only me," with what little
humor I could muster.
And I looked over the fence and they
had a little flashlight and seemed
to be digging a small grave
of some kind with those shovels--
there is the frozen grass
It was in fact our neighbor and her
daughter...and the story
came out...Ann, the daughter, coming
home after a late shift at work
spied this little dead cat
lying smack-in-the-middle of
Lagrima de Oro, two streets
south of us
And being a girl who adored little animals
she tho't to give this little cat
a decent burial...thus all the
digging and scraping sounds I had heard
Somewhat humorously to break the
tension I had said: "What the heck
are you girls doing...half the
neighborhood is up---do you see all
the lights...and you can't just
bury dead things in your
backyard, they might stink, eventually."
They said: "Well, this pore little cat was
just out for a stroll down the
middle of Lagrima de Oro,
minding his own business when he
got run over by prolly a speeding
drunk."
"We have given him an appropriate name---
'LAGRIMA DE ORO,'which means
'TEAR OF GOLD' in Spanish."
"Tomorrow we will mark the little grave
with an epitaph of sorts:
'Here lies Lagrima de Oro,
.....never meant no harm...
...used up his ninth life.' "
------------
As I headed back to bed, with frozen feet,
I thought to myself,
I need more-peaceable nights at my age...
First, it was that screaming skunk...
and now....Lagrima de Oro.
------------
BY MIL
22 APRIL 17
(Verify the veracity of this piece with
Roger, Bradenton, Fl.)
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