The Path to the White Cat

Those blossoming trees on both sides of the path
beautifully disguised the emptiness between the two points
of setting out and of arriving,
which, in turn, somehow justified the trees between them.
Of course, I was imagining it.
I stepped on those flagstones with confidence,
which lent them a considerable existence.

And the sense of a stage, of a spectacle —
could it, any other way, have been an illusion?
At the end of the arch of blossoming trees,
on the second step, by the bush,
tail tucked in and not stirring in the photograph,
the white cat, without disdain,
was gazing at something over my shoulder.

Any turning round of mine now
to check,
or out of needless curiosity,
would be absurdly useless.
The photograph was a few days old.