it’s her favorite kind of summer afternoon, 
lazy and dream-filled as she lies out in tree-dappled sunlight,
brushing wayward gnats away with her tabby tail, 
busy birds watched through one half-open, careful eye. 

her iris holds the reflection of the entire world,
lifetimes of memories from
the countless suns she’s walked under,
so many now that she’s slowly forgetting them all, 
her time as a wily witch’s cat in Salem,
rat warden on a Viking ship beneath a different moon. 

many things have changed since then,
horses and donkeys giving way to gas-eating creatures
that rumble loudly past as she tries to sleep. 
but some things are still as they should be,
the humans doting on her as she sits high
on a velvet throne, gracing them
with the wisdom of millennia. 

she’s had many lives,
but her favorite was her first, as it often is,
when she was just a little tabby cat in Alexandria
trotting through big streets full of hooves and feet and grime,
fighting until she found that hallowed place
far away from the dangerous din,
that safe and gentle haven
where the only sound was that of soft bare footsteps 
of a woman coming down temple stairs
with a golden bowl of milk 
in her tender hands
who stroked her gently 
and bade her, goddess,
to eat.

that night she slept blissfully in the cool garden grass, 
worlds away from the chaos of the city before her,
a soothing breeze flowing along the open peristyles.

and when she woke at midnight,
she saw herself double in the water’s edge,
a lioness standing behind her with a fierce silent smile,
around her head the halo of a thousand suns.

they will worship you,
my child, the goddess said,

and the humans did,
as was proper.

in her garden now, so many years later,
the warm sun melting into her bones
she still hears a deep purr somewhere in her dreams,
the steady pawsteps of a deity weighing on
the pregnant, shivering wind.

this time she comes in the form of a tabby cat, 
ordinary and simple with jade in her eyes
and that same fierce smile 
on her silent face. 

the goddess carries multitudes within her, 
the calm within the eye of ten thousand storms,
dawnbringer, serpent-slayer, 
she who could pull down the bloodied sun 
with her claw and swallow it whole if she wanted. 

her voice is like honey amber,
soft and resplendent 
in the balmy breeze. 

do they still worship you,
my child?

her priestess answers without speaking,
understanding shared in the gleam
of their knowing eyes. 

yes, Mother,
they do.

and the goddess purrs mightily.
somewhere in the world,
a mountain moves. 

she smiles, 
wrapping her tail 
around her feet. 

then everything is as it should be.

they sit together for a while and sleep,
their spirits at peace in the summer sun.

a casual passerby would notice nothing,
just two lazy tabby cats lying in a tree-dappled sunbeam,
the light around them deepening 
with coming sunset.

---

Clarabelle Miray Fields is a Rhysling-nominated, award-winning speculative writer from Boulder, Colorado, whose work has appeared in Corvid Queen, Circe’s Cauldron, the 2021 Rhysling Anthology, and elsewhere. She often writes about ancient myth, scifi, feminism, and everywhere in-between. Currently, she serves as editor for Carmina Magazine, a publication dedicated to modern mythmaking. Find out more at https://clarabellefields.com or @cfieldswriting on Instagram. When she isn’t writing, she enjoys being active outside and drinking dark coffee.