Waterbug

Fix the Hole

I just discovered that our link to the "Bloglet" subscription software had failed some time in the past and those who had signed up weren't getting your subscriptions. I hope this is fixed now and appologize for the oversight. I was aware of it (because I wasn't getting the subscription) but I had other fish to fry first.

Pam

PS, There have been some nice poems posted by Dean recently and my contribution of a digital sketch.

Missed opportunities

She quickly grew to 9 pounds,
now is on a diet.
I only noticed that she
became a little chubby
around the middle,
hidden under all that fur,
and lazier about
chasing the feather.

Remember the times she used to
leap around the open stair treads,
clinging just by her agile paws
as she went under and up?

Remember those bounds
into the air, the flips, the
twists?

The time I could carry her
clinging with her paws around
my neck? (Now I lift her gingerly
and sling her over my shoulder.)

So now she is on a diet. She
doesn't seem to mind it at all.

So I missed capturing all that with my camera.
So what. I have it all, stored
in my head.

Pam

The Big Game

I wave a long peacock feather.
The cat pounces, misses, swerves,
pounces again, has the blue-copper tip
beneath her paw, lifts her paw
and puts it back, relishing possession,
turns, walks away, crouches,
waiting for me to swish the feather
back and forth rapidly
again
and again.
And again.
At some point (always too soon),
I stop, leave the draggled feather
on the floor, go about my business,
watching to make sure
she doesn't attack my ankle
as I turn away -- for if you don't
give your ardent followers a game to play,
you become the game,
big game, in this case.

Dean

Puzzlement

The Puzzlement of Cats

The aloofness often attributed to cats
is, I think, puzzlement about domesticity.
They haven't been at it as long as dogs,
and aren't sure how to take us.

They know they aren't supposed to eat us,
that we respond to shrill, pleading sounds,
that we feed them; they may come to need us,
but often don't get friendship, love, exchange.

Not that they're stupid,
but they haven't had to give,
because we accept as ample exchange
for our love their grace, dexterity and intensity.

Our cat is like a woman who since infancy,
has always been called beautiful –
expecting from everyone (assuming it
to be conventional politeness)
what some young man offers
as his heart. If he protests too much,
she looks at him with the same puzzlement
we get from our cat, and, after tolerating
a brief kiss, begins to comb her hair,
as our cat, after allowing a few caresses,
begins to lick herself. If he persists,
she will do what the cat does – in human fashion.

What the cat does is grapple my hand
in two paws – or sometimes all four (at first
it seems an embrace), then begin to bite it,
gently at first, then a bit too energetically
to allow it to escalate. The girl probably
says something noncommittal,
and if he demands clarification,
says something cruel.

But both, behind hard eyes, are puzzled.

Dean