You walk the ridge where nightshade blooms
Your paws press damp where lichen looms
Taxus baccata guards the eaves
You pause where wind through rafters breathes
Root and claw both know the hour
Soil remembers ancient power
Night unfurls its velvet flower
Black cat on slate October's ghost
You hunt the breath the season loves most
No Latin name for what you are
Just shadow moving near the star
You track the vole through fallen leaf
Where Quercus drops its copper grief
Your whiskers read the pressure drop
Before the rain begins to stop
Black cat on slate October's ghost
You hunt the breath the season loves most
No Latin name for what you are
Just shadow moving near the star
The moon pulls sap in silent xylem
You listen with a feline hymn
No chlorophyll in your green eyes
Just phosphorus and autumn skies
Black cat on slate October's ghost
You hunt the breath the season loves most
No Latin name for what you are
Just shadow moving near the star
All Hallows' Eve the veil is thin
You're neither lost nor born within
A familiar spirit root and bone
Claiming every roof as home
Dawn will wash the slate to gray
But you'll return when light gives way
Felis catus night's botanist
Writing verse with claw and mist
Black cat on slate October's ghost
You hunt the breath the season loves most
No Latin name for what you are
Just shadow moving near the star
Slate remembers every tread
Black cat the soil the dead
