Vespers—Anna A. Friedrich

"...turns out ascension’s easier than coming down..."

Anna A. Friedrich is a poet and Arts Pastor in Boston, Massachusetts. You can find more of her work at annaafriedrich.substack.com

Vespers

by Anna A. Friedrich

What a waste—

when you had a poem 
to write, but instead you were robbed

of one whole writing
day— because your
kitten escaped—

found an evergreen
a block away

right after you
trimmed her claws—

turns out ascension’s 
easier than

coming down— she
meowed, Meowed until

neighbor Irene
came out in the cold

cursing me,
her dead husband,
the town—

she meowed and
meowed, frozen, 
out on a limb

too high
for the fire department
(I called them)— 40 feet?

A liability—
there’s no risking life

or limb of a brave
civil servant

for a 4-month-old
kitten. So I prayed,

seven times
I invoked the name

of the One Who 
Came Down,

what a waste
I repeated— 

standing in the
fresh snow

gazing upwards
for hours

till my neck cramped,
I was hungry, muddied
beyond what you’d think, 

dragging logs,
forgotten siding,
an abandoned red slide—
anything—

ever hoping
for an unlikely turn.

Then I found

an old, broken ladder
under ice and leaf litter—

my husband, a once-
upon-a-time-fire-fighter,
biked home from the office,
put on his ski helmet

while Irene paced
and warned—

my beloved climbed up
that rickety thing, 

reached for and secured

our small, precious one,
the one we named

Vesper, she’s the color 
of night, she’s

ignorant, ambitious,
afraid— 

like a poet.

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Photo by Alex brody on Unsplash