Cat

I am not a cat person. While I see the joy of having a dog, the reciprocity of that relationship, cats seem to have it all their way. My view is, in fairness, tainted by my allergic response to cat fur, rendering me asthmatic and jelly-eyed, but I can see their very independence can be just what makes them loved. Suffice to say, they’re not for me. 

Nevertheless, if I pass a cat I will inevitably talk to it in silly mewling tones, leaving G to roll his eyes and walk ahead disowning me. And usually, the cat’s response is similar.

So when I see THIS cat on our morning walk, I am surprised. He jumps down from the wall in front of me and rolls around playfully, inviting belly-rubs or tickles - although G, by now striding ahead, declares dispassionately, ‘it’s obviously got something wrong with it - don’t go near it’. Let’s be clear about this - it’s not that he’s indifferent: he just hates cats. 

I ignore his warnings, and continue my mewling, talking to the cat while taking copious photos of this cavorting feline. Eventually, I walk off, my new friend quickly following and jumping on a nearby wall where our ‘conversation’ continues. He really is the sweetest cat. More photos follow; he seems to enjoy his role as photographic model. 

And so I end up with today’s blip. I love the perspective, even though he’s lost his ears! And I think I understand a little more just why so many people love these creatures! 


The cat’s song

Mine, says the cat, putting out his paw of darkness.
My lover, my friend, my slave, my toy, says
the cat making on your chest his gesture of drawing
milk from his mother’s forgotten breasts.

Let us walk in the woods, says the cat.
I’ll teach you to read the tabloid of scents,
to fade into shadow, wait like a trap, to hunt.
Now I lay this plump warm mouse on your mat.

You feed me, I try to feed you, we are friends,
says the cat, although I am more equal than you.
Can you leap twenty times the height of your body?
Can you run up and down trees? Jump between roofs?

Let us rub our bodies together and talk of touch.
My emotions are pure as salt crystals and as hard.
My lusts glow like my eyes. I sing to you in the mornings
walking round and round your bed and into your face.

Come I will teach you to dance as naturally
as falling asleep and waking and stretching long, long.
I speak greed with my paws and fear with my whiskers.
Envy lashes my tail. Love speaks me entire, a word
of fur. I will teach you to be still as an egg
and to slip like the ghost of wind through the grass.

Marge Piercy