When our cat was alive he terrorised all the birds, mice and frogs in the neighbourhood. If you have read my poem, “A violent death” you will know what I am talking about.
Once he had died, our garden became a haven for wild life.
I miss my cat of course but I get a great deal of pleasure from observing the birds who visit our garden. In the winter I put out food for them.
Whenever I am doing any sort of gardening or even just pottering in the garden, one little robin always keeps me company. He’s very tame and comes so close I could reach out and touch him. I like to think it’s always the same robin – but who knows?
It makes me think of the little girl who was befriended by a robin in that wonderful children’s book by Frances Hodgson Burnett, “The Secret Garden”.
The photo below shows “my” robin perched on top of a bucket in the snow.
I thought how, in the days when our cat was alive, this simple pleasure would not have been there for me. And I wrote this poem:
Robin
My cat is sleeping.
Just as well
he can’t see the robin
boldly standing there.
Once upon a time
no bird would dare
to venture near.
But my cat is sleeping now
And has been
For a long long time.
A lump of stone
marks his last resting place.
© Andrea Neidle, My Life in Poems
My Life in Poems 
Nice one Andrea. Boy, that robin gets about – looks like the one in our garden!
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