Morgan Harlow

I Had Thought There Was a Bobcat

PUBLISHED IN FOLIO 2025: VOL. 40.

January 15

I dreamed an animal wanted to get out of the house, standing by the living room sliding glass door. I let it out, and after some hesitation, it was able to safely jump to the ground and hurry away. Another animal, a larger pig, was there also. It very intelligently turned around and held to the side of the porch floor and let itself down feet first.

February 15

I opened the door to spring, melting snow, crows cawing, and the distant rumble of trucks on the highway.

February 22 

Dreamed my sister M was outside sleeping on the driveway by the garage at our childhood home. I looked around the corner and saw a wolf, and tried to get M to come inside.

April 2

A gentle spring snow this morning. Dreams of confusion and a new direction in life: J and I were driving in the truck with L and E and a young child. I was trying to get to a class I was teaching, and L took a different route and ended up on a road that ended in stairs. I took the child with me and arrived at the classroom to unlock the door in time. L and the others were going to drive back around and meet us there. I wasn’t prepared to teach and didn’t know what class it was. I decided to start them off with an in-class writing assignment, asking them to write a course description. Then, I would ask them to solve a world problem.

May 1

Dreams of walking in Madison, afraid of contagion, a giraffe was walking in lot 60 on the way to Picnic Point, a new road with people I remember from high school, all fearing the pandemic but not wearing masks or avoiding contact. Then here at home I dreamed there was a dog outside, then got up and looked out the window to see a cocker spaniel puppy, went outside and saw a couple with the puppy on a leash, they were sitting where the porch is and had just decided it was a nice spot to stop and rest.

June 5

A deer watched as I put on makeup this morning.

The iris under the magnolia is in flower.

July 27

Last night, I dreamed about being in the house with the unused upstairs rooms, an entire floor. The world was under siege, a dinosaur toppling buildings. Friends were visiting, and I invited them to go upstairs to the unexplored rooms and stay there if they wanted to.

August 7

Dreamed I was driving from LaCrosse to somewhere, going over a bridge and looking down, missing slats on the bridge, only one tire making contact, a rusted diagonal bar across the rest, a gaping hole down to the water. I sped up and made it over.

August 28

Dreamed I was scaling a barrier, a long horizontal wall or cliff, others were driving towards it, I went ahead and with a running start was one of the first to go up, one person before me, handholds and ledges, the person ahead made it to the top, was happy and then fell off the other side. I reached the top, looked down the other side, and woke up.

September 26

The heavy leaves of the Virginia creeper look like a large cat in the pine tree in the sunlight after a rain, the cat clinging with its paws, its body draped around the trunk.

October 8

Walking on the driveway yesterday, the sun, blue sky, tree leaves in fall colors, a cool autumn day. I felt overwhelmed with the beauty of it all, was in ecstasy and felt like dying from the beauty; the word sublime, even more than that, a part of it all.

October 12

Dreamed a couple of nights ago about seeing the green mountain lion down by the railroad tracks where we used to play. I said to J, Look, it’s the green mountain lion, and it was staring out from the ditch behind the weeds. The look was intense, about to attack, which it did., I was in the car in the passenger seat with the window part open and its paw was at the top. I told J to quickly get in the car at the driver’s side.

This morning, looking out the window from my desk, an animal appeared. At first, I thought it was a pig, but then I saw it was a bobcat. I took a few pictures, and it went off into the autumn woods. Then a heavy rain with wind, leaves flying.

I had thought there was a bobcat coming up the walk one night. The outside light went on at the shed, and I opened the door in time to see an animal go back down the steps and away.

Morgan Harlow has had work appear in Elm Leaves Journal, Louisiana Literature, The Moth Magazine, The Tusculum Review, Washington Square Review, and other journals. She teaches writing in Madison, Wisconsin and is the author of the poetry collection Midwest Ritual Burning.