after Jane Hirshfield
Oh look, I say to the cat
You have a soup belly.
I jiggle and wiggle her soft, floppy middle.
She does not love it.
I get it, I say to her. Sometimes
I don’t want to be touched either.
More truly, I do want to be touched,
but only in the way I want to be touched.
The cat holds her paws midair, frozen there,
as if not yet sure if to attack or relax.
She chooses relax. I choose
to massage between her ears.
She nuzzles her small skull into my palm.
I know, I say to the cat. I miss her, too.
We both know she’d rather be with my daughter.
We both feel the absence here.
We sit a long time like this, the cat nuzzling,
me dragging my fingertips forward and back,
forward and back.
With her body, she shows me
just where and how much to touch her.
When I move to rise, she lashes out with a claw
to keep me in place beside her.
In this way, I study my life.
How to hold. How to let go.
Loneliness wears a haunting perfume,
resinous, sweet, full of laughter
and silence. What a gift, I say to the cat,
to miss her together.
I cross the room. The cat follows to where I sit next.
Later, she leads me to her bowl. I follow.
Posts Tagged ‘cat’
Kinship
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged cat, connection, daughter, loneliness, pet, touch on July 21, 2026| 4 Comments »
Self-Portrait as Cat Pillow
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged achievement, cat, comfort, stillness on February 15, 2026| 9 Comments »
Each time the cat leaps up
onto the bed, she makes
a small bright sound.
I love this sound. Love knowing
that soon her warm weight
will curl into or on top of my belly.
It’s addictive as the chime
of an incoming text.
Seductive as short sleeves
and the firm curve of biceps.
My greatest achievement—
more prized than title or degree—
is when my cat finds me
worthy of being her resting place.
I soften then. Allow. I thrive.
Become creature. Become
purr-being. Trust-cushion.
A reverent stillness. I become
one who will still for love.
The Apprentice
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged cat, learning, slowness on December 1, 2024| 18 Comments »
I would like to receive direct training
from my cat in which I learn to move slowly
from room to room in search of pools of sunlight,
learn to immerse myself in a new rhythm
that has everything to do with darkness and warmth
and nothing at all to do with a clock. And purr about it.
Purr because purring feels so good in the body.
I want to restore my connection with silence,
to let something small, like a ribbon, completely
captivate my attention. Want to be utterly
absorbed by the way light moves. I want more skill
in being curious about my own wildness,
to be less civilized, more alive. For her part,
the cat seems disinterested in this new arrangement.
She rubs against my leg before wandering off to nap.
I follow her, letting my shoulder graze the wall.
Can you go slower? I ask myself as I move newly
through space. It feels ancient, this pace.
Nothing like the bustle I normally keep.
I let myself move toward curling in,
toward sleep, and for a dreamy, real moment,
I know slowness as a primitive right,
an invitation to intimacy with the world,
the kind of skill that can’t be rushed.
The cat nuzzles into my side.
And for a moment, some emptiness
I hadn’t known was there is filled.
Anxiety
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged anxiety, cat on May 17, 2024| 7 Comments »
Like a cat that finds
the lap of the person
who doesn’t want it,
anxiety keeps nudging me,
leaping up to my lap,
curling deeper in,
and no matter how
many times I push it
away, anxiety returns,
kneads into the parts
of me that are soft,
as if it knows it could be
so comfortable here
if only I’d stop
all this flailing.
Nightly Encounter
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged cat, falling asleep, worthiness on February 29, 2024| 14 Comments »
In the dark, she finds her way to me,
this cat who never deigns to sit
on my lap in the day.
I delight in this moment
when, just before sleep takes me,
I feel the thump of her landing,
the exploratory nudge of her head,
the tentative paws as they knead
into the covers, into my belly,
I love being the place
she chooses to rest—
in the moment, this honor
as important as any degree,
any title, any prize.
It’s so easy then, to love my body
when I am her cushion,
my softness in service
to her softness, my warmth
in service to her warmth,
my breath her rocking chair.
And any harshness I might
have for myself softens
in this humble moment
when I am deemed worthy
of her weight, this heavenly heaviness,
her sweet purr into my ribs
so quiet not even
the night can hear.
Learning to Lie Still
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged cat, still, sunshine on June 15, 2023| 4 Comments »
It isn’t easy.
Good, then, to have a cat
come lie in the curve of my arm
with her full weight on my weight,
her warmth against my side.
If she purrs, so much the better.
How could I rise and disrupt
her low gravelly song?
So I lie still. Awake, but not scrolling.
Not speaking. Not running to fix.
It comes to this—my great hope
for learning to lie still
is to become a cushion for cat.
It’s a noble hope—to lie still
as a cat in the curve of an arm,
still as a pool of daylight on the sill,
still as the sun itself, holding the center
as the whole world moves around it.
If I Can’t Have You In Person, Then
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged cat, grief, love, mother, son on December 11, 2021| 10 Comments »
Tonight your absence
is a long-haired cat—
circling me, nudging me,
curling in my lap
and deciding to stay.
Is it strange to say
I love the presence
of your absence—
not the fact you are gone,
but the way it reminds me
I have made a life
of loving you—a choice
I will again and again make.
This is what I want:
To be awed by how
you still teach me
to love;
to be inspired
by how you still insist
I meet life as it is,
not life the way
I wish it would be.
I want to hold out my arms
and lean into the spaces
you’ve left behind.
I want to be as close
to your memory
as this cat in my lap—
how it molds to my shape,
how it makes of my body
a home.
Meeting This Moment
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged aggression, cat, fear, love, self talk on November 4, 2020| 15 Comments »
There was that night when the cats were frightened
because they saw a feral butterscotch cat outside the door—
and for days they yowled and shrieked at each other
out of fear of what they didn’t understand,
intimidated by what they didn’t know how to fight.
So they fought each other.
Displaced aggression, said the vet,
and she encouraged us to give them space.
Today, when the news is full of butterscotch cats
that come to my door, I understand the instinct
to wail, to caterwaul. I understand the impulse
to fight with someone, anyone, to raise my voice,
to find my claws, to hiss and arch and attack
in an effort to discharge this aggression that pumps in me
churns like a river in flood stage, filled with debris and mud.
And that is when some inner voice,
a voice so quiet it’s almost impossible to hear,
suggests, “Singing is still an option.”
Suggests, “Can you shine in this moment?”
Suggests, “If you choose to speak only love,
if you choose to give space,
how might that change the only thing
you are able to change?”
But It Took Over an Hour to Get There
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged ars poetica, cat, ideas, writer's block on January 24, 2020| 7 Comments »
This morning the new kitten played with a hair tie
for twenty minutes, kicking it under the table,
swatting it across the room, catching it on a nail
and tossing it into the air. Meanwhile, I tried
to do the same thing with an idea—tried
to bat at it, swipe at it, fling it across the room
and then chase it and pounce on it again.
But that’s not what happened. The idea
sat dead on the desk. I barely even looked at it.
I let my paws make tea instead. And then
went to Facebook. Then vacuumed the room.
Then stared at the idea and wondered why
it hadn’t moved. Boring idea. Dumb idea.
Why did it just sit there, lifeless as a hair tie?
Eventually the kitten, exhausted from frolic,
curled down for a nap. I sat back in the chair,
wondered at what I might learn from the cat.
Picked up the idea again. Gave it a whack. And darned
if it didn’t take on some life as my nose
nudged it into new places. Curious, my whole body
readied to pounce, my tail swishing behind my back.
*Yes, friends, we’ve gotten a new kitten, Tamale.
How It Goes with Hope
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged cat, grief, hope, loss, tenderness, what is on January 15, 2020| 7 Comments »
|
Eventually a burning hope |
Missing
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged cat, hope, loss, paradox, poem, poetry, science on December 28, 2019| 2 Comments »
Hope is, perhaps, a quantum thing,
a paradox, like Schrödinger’s cat,
simultaneously alive and dead.
Today, I wandered the snowy field
and the icy banks and the shadowed wood,
calling the name of my sweet gray cat.
If I could find her now, I’d see
she’s either alive or dead.
But in this moment of uncertainty,
she’s both alive and dead to me.
I’m tugged by both possibilities as I wade
through tall dry grass. Oh damn that hope,
and bless it, too, how just a candle-measure
opposes a whole tower of unfounded certainty,
sends me out into the blizzard
calling her name, listening.
The Second Night the Cat Doesn’t Come Home
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged cat, loss, poem, poetry on December 27, 2019| Leave a Comment »
catching sight
of where she isn’t—
in the dark behind the window
I see only
my own searching
One Who Wants to Grow
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged cat, lion, personal growth, poem, poetry on October 5, 2019| Leave a Comment »
One Curiosity
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged cat, Christmas, curiosity, poem, poetry on January 6, 2019| Leave a Comment »
Presence
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged absence, cat, poem, poetry, presence on February 15, 2018| Leave a Comment »
When the cat ran away,
I noticed how she did not move
between the legs of the chairs,
how she did not yowl by her bowl
nor sit in the window. Everything
I saw was where she was not.
All day, I held it close,
her absence. All day,
I thought how she was not here.
Was it true?
One the Day After
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged cat, death, emptiness, loss, poem, poetry on October 25, 2017| Leave a Comment »
One Lament
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged cat, death, letting go, poem, poetry on October 17, 2017| 3 Comments »
In the ragged purr of the cat
in my lap I hear all the sun
she has yet to curl into,
all the mice she has yet
to chase, all the days
we don’t have left.
Without Making a Sound
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged cat, meditation, poem, poetry, touch on September 13, 2017| 2 Comments »
The cat does not care that I’m meditating.
She cares that I am warm and seated and still.
I pretend that I am ignoring her and notice
when I pretend not to notice I am pretending.
She settles in my lap. I notice how
this act seems to involve the whole world.
All day, I consider how powerful an act
to touch someone. how even the sky leans in.
Muse
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged ars poetica, cat, muse, poem, poetry on August 18, 2016| 2 Comments »
Muse
It’s like the absence
where the cat used to come
and rub against your leg
and you had some hope
there was real affection,
perhaps she even favored you,
you were, after all,
the one who fed her—
no wonder she nuzzled your shins—
but that was before you tried
to pick her up and rub
her belly. Eager fool.
It was days before the cat
let herself be seen again,
though you set out cream,
though you promised loudly
not to pick her up.
God, just to feel her
rub against your leg.
That would be enough, you
tell yourself, but you
and the cat both know you’ll try
to pick her up again, your hands
desperate as a blank page.
Pulling the Meditation Cushion out from under the Bed
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged cat, meditation, poem, poetry on July 5, 2015| 3 Comments »
Well, it’s obvious who’s been meditating more,
me or my cat. I can’t remember the last time
I sat on this cushion. Organic cotton. Unbleached.
But the cat, well, apparently she is nearing nirvana.
Based on thick layer of gray and black hair,
she’s clearly sat here for hours, perhaps contemplating
nothing as I have often strived to do. Striving for nothing.
The paradox is not lost on me. The cushion, however,
has been essentially lost. Not once have I thought of it
in months, did not consider it at all as it quietly
waited there with its company of dust bunnies.
It seems content enough. I vacuum it off, but I do not sit,
oh no, there is much too much to do, like clean
the meditation cushion, top and bottom. Who
could possibly sit on a day such as this, the house
full of clutter and a cat box to empty, the yard
full of weeds, the day full of marvels
and swervings and oh, just look at that blue.