The first version is six lines of six syllables each. Since the poem is about a cat, I did a second version in nine lines of nine syllables each.
The old cat in the sun 1
The old cat in the porch
lets the heat seep into
the marrow of her bones,
sleeping where lizards bask,
in the thin shade of leaves
and the sun’s fierce silence.
The old cat in the sun 2
The old cat in the porch is sleeping,
indifferent to the heat, lets it
seep into the marrow of her bones,
sleeping where lizards bask, immobile,
where the desert breeze, through shrivelled stalks,
sends dapples dancing, elusive shade,
and in the crisp clatter of leaf-fall,
deaths, cut adrift by the mother tree,
she hears only the sun’s fierce silence.
Jane Dougherty Writes 