pet

May 28, 2022

PECULIAR?

I grant you cats can be peculiar
but they have one significant
advantage over all other pets,
except maybe hamsters
and gerbils, for when you
need someone to talk to,
to unload your problems on,
to try and wrestle with
a thorny issue of public policy
or geopolitical intrigue
and that night has swallowed
everyone you know, anyone
you might dare disturb
in the hours after midnight,
you may rest assured that
a dog would be sleeping
somewhere and will not be
roused for heaven and earth,
but a cat will be wide awake,
willing to let you go on and on
in exchange for a bit of play,
but there is the risk that she
or he will disagree with you
using a claw for emphasis.

May 25, 2021

DEAR PAVLOV

We both know that having
a pet at our age is wise
for they provide a companionship
that can be difficult to find.
I’ve had both dogs and cats,
but the decision this time
was reasonably simple,
for dogs have an insatiable
need to walk their people,
weather is no impediment
and my arthritis is no longer
all that forgiving of damp and cold.

So we settled on a cat, and we
have been pleased with our
decision – she is joyous, playful
and reads our emotional needs,
but most importantly, other
than not needing to walk us,
she has been remarkably adept
at training us to live in her new home.

March 5, 2021

IN HIS IMAGE

He said the assignment is
an easy one for this class,
write a piece, poem or story,
your choice, but focused 
on a single metaphor. Oh,
and to make it interesting,
that metaphor should be
the last pet you owned or
currently own, and if you’ve
never been blessed with a pet,
use an ocelot or a lynx.

How hard could it be, I thought,
I have a cat, she will be 
my metaphor, and so I sat,
picked up pen and paper
and absolutely nothing came.

The cat watched me, heard me
mutter under, I thought, 
my breath, then gently mewed:
“Cats cannot be metaphors,
you should know that, for we
are unique in nature, unless
of course you wish to write
about God, for we know that we
were created in his image.

March 1, 2019

ARF

Sitting on the fourth shelf
from the top, in the second rank
of bookcases in my office
is a somewhat worn copy
Dylan Thomas is “Portrait
of the Artist as a Young Dog.”
I can’t admit to ever having read it,
or an ability to now recall if I did,
but I know I’ve had several young dogs
in my 66 years, but none
were particularly artistic;
but perhaps I set too high a standard
as they did seem to treat
the white tiles in the foyer
of my parents suburban home
as a canvas on rainy spring days,
very much to my mother’s dismay.

June 10, 2018

MIA

Each morning, as he went out on his walk, he would check the street light pole just down his block. He would carefully read the missing cat and dog posters, pause to think whether he might have seen any of the missing animals. He often wondered how many had been found, the missing notices left to fade in the sun and peel away after enough rain. He knew that some had found new homes, wondered briefly what they might have been escaping, hiding out from their owners. And each morning he scanned the pole to see if anyone had reported him missing, but he was the sort of person no one missed, he knew, and so he continued on his walk.