For me, love is defined by cats. It's an imprint received - before I could talk - from two Siamese and a black. The first phrases I uttered were long shrieks while running my hands up a cat's tail, which apparently they didn't mind. Many cats have put up gracefully with my adoration since then.
Continuing a recent theme on this blog, I've collected together some of my writings about these wild-at-heart felines. I won a prize at school for a story about cats, and not long ago a real writer I admire deeply wrote me 'cats are your natural great subject'. Blushes aside, as it is Valentines Day, I'm going to indulge myself thoroughly.
PS The title of this blog post can be found in the poem 'Sudden delight'. The photographs included here are another kind of poetic expression celebrating my beloved current cat companion Marigold Gemini Moon aka Logwalker. (Images and poetry copyright Sara Firman.)
Cats have always been able to get through to me
(extract from an unpublished autobiographical memoir):
Just before I drifted into a slump of self-chastisement, however, a cat walked in, announcing its arrival with an upbeat meow. It paused for a moment surveying the room and me, holding my eye with its golden gaze. Cats have always been able to get through to me, to restore my affectionate nature and joie de vivre. Sadly, I had not been reliable enough lately to be adopted by a cat. I got the distinct feeling that this one had come to show me the lie of the land. Sandy brown and muscular with an expressive tail that he held high as he walked, my companion was both dignified and matter-of-fact in his demeanor. Pulling on some light clothing, while the cat wandered about inspecting the room for changes, I was ready to step outside.
We went through the breezeway and out of a door at the opposite end to where I had entered the night before. Pushing the swing door, I wondered briefly how the cat had come in, but that cat, I soon found out, could do things it was not helpful to question. Sweeping around to the left from where I stood on the verandah was a distant mountain range and I saw snow on one of those peaks. The verandah encircled the house apparently and its roof of tin, festooned with passionfruit vine, had a long curve to it that held off the strong sun. Steps led down to a sandy fringe where the cat now stood looking quizzically up at me. As I came down the stairs, he trotted off along a sandy path to the right through a grove of feather-leaved, sweet-scented acacia trees. The path was lined with rocks so full of color and fossil-like markings that I was momentarily distracted, but the cat called me on. ...
Two haiku
reckless winter
spilt milk on the rocky bluffs:
who will lap it up?
three cats cross a log
striped shadows and black patches
wood, water and rock
Sudden delight
Sudden delight:
As when a black shadow
right-angles my oblivious path
blurts into that steadfast daze
and becomes a cat flirt
for no obvious reason.
Sudden delight:
As when a cutglass remark
shifts perspective and gasps
with a thousand rainbows
over a thing not lost
on a shared experience.
Sudden delight:
As when a green glistening
turns into a forest beetle
ornamented purple and bronze
whose life has ended
but remains as a jewel.
More cat flirts ...
The remaining offerings can be found in full on previous blog posts by following the 'Read more' links.
Viriditas
That gleam on green
whose swift pause
is a glimpsed mood
half-hidden at the edge
of a foliated dream
sending its soft mewl
a rippled renaissance
through furred leaf
whiskered and burred
is the verdant one
sleek feral queen
masked in oak
Read more
The bobcat and the peony
An imprint flashed
its thoughts of light
between leaves of trees
and there
she was.
Read more
A labyrinth of promises kept
Carrying our Prayers into night air
The moon comes over the dark hill
Fireflies light our way to the Circle
A shaft of Moonlight falls across it
Ah! Coming to rest on the Spirit Cat
Read more
Fire pinks
Ma ... ur ... ma ... ur ... ur
my call echoes
sad
desperation
along
the high trail
She's out here
hunting
instinct
Read more
Esther is hiding
In the cornered shadow
at the deep end of a shelf
the shocked white china
teapot blinks.
Read more
An escape (short story)
In the confusion, I slip my cat past the sign that says 'No Animals'. She sleeps, as always, wrapped around my neck, then tries out Bill's bed for a while. Some time in the long night I say 'The thing is, Bill ...', trying to process my anguish. 'The worse that can happen ...,' he replies, 'just try to sleep'. And I go back to my impossible sleep. After breakfast, Treasure picks up on my fear and hides under the bed. There's a sign there that says, 'Yes, we do clean under here!'. One can only laugh, and be grateful for small mercies.
Read more
Dreaming up the land
She'd been abandoned to certain death when I found her under an oak tree at nearby little Big Spring. It was a mossy spot where children attending the old schoolhouse (since destroyed) had once kept their lunchboxes cool in spring waters. Being Pink's guardian gave expression to a maternal broodiness growing in me, her playful innocence made me sing. I spent hours under trees coaxing her down, catching her as she launched her trusting self into my arms. Watching her learn about, and long for, the wild deepened my own experience of it.
Read more
Coming up: Pink - a cat ballad
14 Febuary 2009: Red cardinal valentines
14 February 2010: An astropoetic valentine
See also: On the wing (poems about birds)
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