Cat on the fence

The black cat is back. 

I don't know that he (she?) ever really goes away, but I haven't seen him since early in the summer. As I settled in this morning, outside with my coffee, my computer, my books and my chair cushion, I looked to my right and saw the cat draped on the fence that separates my yard from my neighbor's. I've seen him there before. What an odd resting place, I thought. 

Sometimes, when I've left the chair cushions out overnight with no concern for rain, I come out in the morning and find grayish-black cat hair on the cushion. If I'm awake very early, I may even find the cat, who looks back at me and abandons the chair slowly. I suppose it's yours, he seems to say. That hasn't happened this summer--I'm rarely out before 8. 

Today the cat is on the fence, and while I was wondering what it must be like to relax and rest and balance on that horizontal board that runs across the top of the fencing, I saw my friend stretch his neck a little bit forward and down. He's watching something. He's hunting, lying in wait for a mouse--or something else--to come out from under the leaves in the garden bed below. When he springs into action that pile of rounded fur on the fence will suddenly have swift legs and a curving tail for balance. I keep watching— I don't want to miss this.

Someone walks past on the sidewalk to my left, a full backyard away from the cat on the fence. There's a stroller and a dog and enough noise that the cat turns his head and trains his green-amber eyes on the intrusion. A car goes past and he looks this way again and then turns his head ever so slightly to stare at me. Or so it seems. He's glassy-eyed and has the advantage here; I can't be sure where he's looking, but I know that he knows that I'm watching him. And he doesn't care. I'm a large human. What am I going to do? Leap across 40 feet of backyard weeds to grab or frighten him?

But it's a long wait. The last swallow of coffee in my cup is cold. He gets up, he stretches, arched-back, full-on cat pose, tail reaching high. Is he done for the morning? Not yet. He settles back down with renewed attention to the foliage below. This time his long tail hangs down this side of the fence. Do tails fall asleep and get tingly, like human feet curled under the sitter? When will the long wait be too long?

A few minutes ago my eyes veered to the left to watch a pair of birds rise up and curl around the peak of my house's roof and then circle into the top of the maple on the corner. Large birds, hawks, I thought -- the Cooper's Hawk pair known to live in the neighborhood. (Thing you learn on Facebook!) I saw them in bare trees last spring, an adult and a juvenile. The brown and white stripes on their wedged tail feathers, stretched and rounded out for flight, are easy to see even at a distance. The arrogance of predators. 

Sparrows have been gathering on the utility wires two and three yards away. I haven't seen any in my yard. They'll stay a safe distance from this persistent, patient cat, who is still there on the fence, almost an hour later. How long must one wait for action below? Has he nothing better to do?