House Sitting

 

 

House sitting for a friend in Tuosist

I awake before you to enjoy an hour or two

of creative bliss, if it happens to arrive,

and admire a panoramic slice of Kerry-

burgeoning rhododendron, sunflower-yellow whin

fields uninterrupted by high rise,

except for the distant peaks of the reeks

that etch a crooked trail across the sky.

 

And via WhatsApp I tell my friend in San Sebastian,

whose house I am sitting,

to look out for the dude wearing the traditional txapela

finger- thinned to a peak at the front

speaking Basque to his retriever and the waiter

while sipping his café solo.

 

And that I have researched the history of her house

and find that it was indeed a dispensary

doleing out physic and herbs

to the rural poor of the townland in 1856.

 

And that I have travelled even further back in time,

to the Bronze Age, in fact,

for here in Tuosist there are eight stone circles

and a plethora of fulachta fias, cooking pits of the deer.

 

And so I have imagined myself a bronze age dude

gathering stones the size of baby’s head,

heating them white hot and dropping them in a water pit,

now bubbling to a rolling boil, to cook my straw wrapped venison,

twenty minutes to the pound and 20 minutes extra.

 

At which point I begin to wonder

if you are ever going to get up

so that we can put on the kettle for tea

and maybe boil our eggs

three minutes each

and not a second longer.

Copyright Cathy Leonard 2026

Gifting Socks

 

The Problem of Gifting Socks

 

When it comes to the subject of socks

and who gets the pair

I’ve just rolled off the assembly line

it’s not always a question of Que sera, sera.

 

Privately I cross my fingers and my five needles

for a recipient who will appreciate my long hours

spent at the coalface with my double pointed tools.

Someone who is perhaps in need of a foot-lift

or at least celebrating a propitious moment

or serendipitously just happens to call by

 

To be gifted with a Blue Lagoon or a Silent Night

or a Peacock, a Kingfisher or  Wild Pheasant

not to mention a Rainbow or a Norse God.

(For the wool merchant’s market-speak stretches wide these days.)

 

 I could just hoard them in a basket

to be gift wrapped and labelled at Christmas time-

For there’s Nutmeg and Hollyberry and even Mulled Wine.

 

But they are like hot coals in my hand

devices about to explode,

or to put it more benignly,

hot loaves fresh from the oven.

In short- products to be launched at speed,

with or without the hype.

 

But I do need to think twice about those Norse gods

before I roll out that line.

For who wants to wear the hammer wielding Thor

or the wolf giant Skoll on their feet

doomed to relentless war mongrelling

or chasing the sun goddess across the sky?

 

Copyright Cathy Leonard 2026. All rights reserved.

Staying Dumb

 

Staying Dumb

 

After forty years of marriage

sometimes we run out of things to say.

 

That’s when I share with you the trivia of my day.

 

The cat nearly caught a mouse.

That bee in the honeywort sounds like a radio station off- frequency.

 

A practice that is not reciprocal.

 

So when we were wandering

down that unknown road in Kerry,

you way ahead when I noticed it,

 

Ardea Gardens- Enter at your own risk!

 

(more like a dare than a warning

what with the exclamation mark and all,

one that I would have liked to take

one that you might have liked to take too)

 

I decided to stay dumb.

 

And likewise further on when I saw

the Children Playing sign stuck in a bank

up a country lane on that unknown road,

stipulating a maximum speed of 10 MPH,

 

I decided to stay dumb again

 

But later when you were proceeding down a slipway

in order to reach the gallery

ignoring the warning to take off your shoes at high tide,

I decided it was time to alert you

 

To that spume creeping steadily upward

 

And that’s when I also told you

about our missed adventure in Ardea Gardens

and my speculations on the purpose of those Children Playing

 

and even went back to the subject of that bee….

 

Copyright Cathy Leonard 2026

On the death of a beloved pet

 

No Way Around but Through

I walked around the park for two decades 

before you came along

showing me a more inward trail.

The copse where the wren mostly prevail,

the spot most likely to pipe with song thrush,

the trees whose boles cupped water for you to sup,

the ridge across the pitch that afforded a dry foot crossing.

You always did a twirl around the goal posts

where we always turned for home.

Your tail sweep-swinging, your stride high-stepping,

sure-footed now on the return leg.

I tried to walk around the park today.

But it's too late for that now.

And so, I let the tears fall

retrace, retrieve and recall

you in your heyday leaping

and in your latter day stumbling

but always bringing me into

the heart of the matter.

                                                                  MOLLY -2012-2026

Copyright 2026 Cathy Leonard

The High Jump

When he appeared beside me,

apparently out of thin air,

skimming across the surface 

as if landing on the moon-

a graceful glide, kicking up no star dust,

I had to concede how superior to us

these creatures are. 

No need for a Fosbury flop or Eastern cut off or scissors

as he rises to a height ten times his own.

Just a feet first straight on approach,

assessing his task from the floor pad with a slight tilt of  his ears

and then a back leg spring that catapults him into mid air-

rather like a rocket launch than a high jump...

Our cat jumping onto the kitchen table

Copyright 2026 Cathy Leonard

HISTORY OF THE HIGH JUMP

Self Published- Second Novel

I have just self published my second novel. Like my first it lay in a shoe box for a decade or two until I found the self publishing course. 

HUNTED-In Search of the Cathar Treasure grew out of two things.

1. I had just read about the fifth Crusade in thirteenth century France- the persecution of a group of people called Albigensians   who were deemed heretics by the Catholic Church at that time.

The heretics seemed to me to be a likeable sort of people who eschewed many of the conventional values of the day. They lived a simple  life, They travelled in pairs, worked often as weavers and were taken in by the locals in the Languedoc region in France. 

The Albigensians, known later in history as the Cathars, were deemed to be heretics by the Church in Rome. The heresy hinged upon their principle of Good and Evil. Albigensians believed that the world was the creation of the forces of darkness and that little attention should be paid to worldly authority. This impacted on the power of church and state.

 They found followers, credentes, in the prosperous area of the Languedoc which was at the time a lively hub of merchant trade and politically not under the control of the King of France.

Parallel to the growth of Albigensian doctrines was the rise of the troubadour poetry. It was here that the performance of troubadours thrived.

This novel is set in the Languedoc at this critical period of its history. The main characters are fictitious but references are made to historical figures.

 2. I was taking a creative writing workshop at the time and a character popped into my head or more pointedly to the tip of my pen. His name was Nicolas, he was a troubadour and he was witnessing the burning at the stake of a group of Cathars.

After that the story morphed somewhat and I traced Nicolas's origins back to a scene in Beziers 1209. Here he presented as a child escaping from a burning city that was being sacked by Church and state.

At the sacking of Bezier in 1209, 20, 000 Catholics and Albigensians were slaughtered following the infamous catchphrase attributed to Arnauld Amaury, “Kill them all. God will know his own.”

So began the Albigensian Crusade, 1209-1229 launched by Pope Innocent 111, and led by Simon de Montfort, a skilful warrior under the approving eye of Arnauld Amaury, head of the Cistercian order.

It is a shocking story. 

Later in time it was believed that the Cathars had in their possession the Holy Grail. 

The novel is available on Amazon platforms.

HUNTED- a novel by Cathy Leonard

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catharism

https://www.frenchviews.com.au/my-journal/montsgur-and-the-cathars

 

Encounters with an AI

 It's hard not to encounter AI these days

for he/she/it pops up on every google search.

Competition for Wiki - though not asking for a donation.

Just Trust - Complete Trust.

But when I key in bakeayarn, my blog title,

which to be fair is a bit obtuse 

and has probably led to many misdirected hits

from followers who expect recipes and knitting patterns,

I am surprised at the results.

For AI prefaces its response

in a classic case of prevarication, 

declaring my query as not standard

and qualifying its deliberation

as likely to refer to:

And I find not me, but suggestions

for putting yarn into a low oven to kill off pests,

mostly beetles, and by low does he/she/it mean

near the ground or low in temperature?

(A bit vague to inspire Complete Trust.)

And/or I am prompted to  make a cake with my messy yarn

by winding it in a flat circle to prevent tangle.

Either way, all said and done, it seems that baking yarn, according to AI,

is a method of establishing order and eliminating  problems,

which is not at all what I have in mind when writing a poem,

for throwing up uncertainty,paradox, and creating a certain amount

of obfuscation is indeed the goal of much poetry.

But perhaps by purporting to know it all,

albeit with some equivocation,

while disseminating confusion

AI is a bit of a modern poet after all.

Copyright 2025 Cathy Leonard