Reading on the Couch

by Carol Ruppel


A paw slips over the edge of the page

and then another, creeping slightly

across the page as I read,

tentative, inching over

lines of Bonhoeffer.

 

Soon a mass of rumbling fur 

blocks the pages. Sigh.

I push back slightly, then firmly.

 

Insisting, not shy,

a dry nose butts my hand.

Pet me!  and I comply,

knowing I, like this cat, 

yearn to curl on God’s lap

if he would allow me,

purring, settled,

yearning for his touch

on me.

Carol Ruppel taught English and creative writing at Model Laboratory School on the campus of Eastern Kentucky University for 13 years and holds a BA in studio art and an M.Ed. in Teaching English as a Second Language (ESL). Her classroom experience also includes 20 years of ESL instruction, working first with refugees and then college students. Among the highlights of her career have been a sabbatical year at the Slovak Agricultural University in Nitra, Slovakia, where she co-authored a textbook on research writing through a Fulbright grant, and a transformative summer at the Bread Loaf School of English at Middlebury College in Vermont. She recently left her job at EKU to pursue other interests, which include writing, art, mission work, various volunteer activities, photography and poetry.