To my first cat
Nov. 15th, 2017 09:39 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sonia20 years ago today, I took my first cat to be put to sleep at the end of his struggle with bone cancer. I woke up thinking about him today, even though I didn't notice the anniversary until later.
I loved that cat immoderately. I got him in college when I was 18. We rescued him from a rural highway when we stopped at the side of the road and this scrawny black and white cat with enormous green eyes insisted on getting in the car. We did check at a nearby house that he was a stray.
Over the course of 10 years, he moved across the country with me, through 5 more moves in California, and lived for a while at the condo I finally settled in. It got so he started sulking immediately if I started putting books in boxes. He knew what was coming.
We were a family of two. He was the constant in a stream of change. I was losing not only his presence, but a connection to my history. It felt important that he had been through it with me, and knew where we had been. Since then, I've gotten more used to large chunks of my history falling away unwitnessed.
I wrote this poem for him a while back.
Such Big Green Eyes
“Such big green eyes!” everyone said.
The only possible eyes – your eyes.
Your elegant white-edged blackness,
Your eager sidewalk welcome
After every working day,
(The neighbors say you welcomed them, too)
Your (secretly pleased) resignation
When my hands came down to lift you,
Your soft sure settling into my cross-legged lap,
Your dark velvet eyelids drifting closed,
Your lavender-crowned body curled quiet
In the earth, trailing absence like a kite
Released.
I loved that cat immoderately. I got him in college when I was 18. We rescued him from a rural highway when we stopped at the side of the road and this scrawny black and white cat with enormous green eyes insisted on getting in the car. We did check at a nearby house that he was a stray.
Over the course of 10 years, he moved across the country with me, through 5 more moves in California, and lived for a while at the condo I finally settled in. It got so he started sulking immediately if I started putting books in boxes. He knew what was coming.
We were a family of two. He was the constant in a stream of change. I was losing not only his presence, but a connection to my history. It felt important that he had been through it with me, and knew where we had been. Since then, I've gotten more used to large chunks of my history falling away unwitnessed.
I wrote this poem for him a while back.
Such Big Green Eyes
“Such big green eyes!” everyone said.
The only possible eyes – your eyes.
Your elegant white-edged blackness,
Your eager sidewalk welcome
After every working day,
(The neighbors say you welcomed them, too)
Your (secretly pleased) resignation
When my hands came down to lift you,
Your soft sure settling into my cross-legged lap,
Your dark velvet eyelids drifting closed,
Your lavender-crowned body curled quiet
In the earth, trailing absence like a kite
Released.
WOw
Date: 2017-11-17 09:16 pm (UTC)Re: WOw
Date: 2017-11-18 02:09 am (UTC)