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.
Posts Tagged ‘cat’
Learning to Lie Still
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged cat, still, sunshine on June 15, 2023| 4 Comments »
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 »
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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?