A Feline Plea!

Is there worry for our feline friends
As council hounds come barking?
Have they not heard the health they bring
Through adverse effects of stroke reducing?

Another role they play is this:
Keep down the rodents, high and low.
They do it all for homes and ships
Can they help ease a food bank’s woe?

So please leave them be, and better spend your time.
And our funds, indeed, on things more sublime.
If you still feel the need to use animal verbiage,
Go after racoons – as they rout through our garbage!

~ Ruth MacKenzie remains annoyed with the Cat By-Law in HRM…

A Hound’s Dream

A HOUND'S DREAM ~ A parody on Keats' 'La belle dame sans merci'


Oh, what can cheer thee noble hound

Asleep in thy warm basket?



The thoughts of chase have drowned thy dreams

And thou art replete with biscuit.



The cunning fox deceived me not,

As on his scent I stayed;

The water and his doubling back.

Did not have me dismayed.



The other hounds grew tired soon,

And lost the trail forever;

But sight and smell of that red devil.

Kept my heart and soul together



At last when sun sank in the west

I ran the fox to ground

And burrowing 'neath the soft black earth

I dragged out what I found



A pat, 'well done!', was all I got,

But my heart could beat no faster,

When the swishy brush of hunter's quarry,

Was presented by the Master.



And this is why I relax here

Asleep in my warm basket,

The thoughts of chase have drowned my dreams,



And I am replete with biscuit.



~Ruth MacKenzie