Space & Time

(a note for Alex Gildzen)

I'm turning 65 next month, & for most of that time I have shared my life with cats. Or perhaps, I have spent time with cats who were gracious enough to let me share their space with them.

The first was a ginger tom with the mundane name of Peter, he so big & I so small that I would pretend to ride it around the house as if / it were a horse. Another time, another town; & a distraught motorist who came knocking at our door to say he had run over our – this one with an unremembered name but I know it had black fur – cat which had crawled away into a stormwater drain to, as we all thought, die. But hours later, at the open front door – life was much more secure then – this bloodied but not too badly broken creature. & nursed back to health……

I don't remember cats in Wellington, but Auckland, yes.

                                                                                            The
cat enters, all wet with droplets of rain, like a
grey night.

& Sydney, possibly my favourite, that would spend the day prowling & then, late in the afternoon, would come to perch on the balcony of the front porch, to welcome me when I got home. Who would go for walks with me , miles at a time, scuttling along under the parked cars for protection. Who would come with me when I went up to the shops, most of the way, & then climb up a tree in the park just before the main road, to wait for my return.

She died aged about fifteen. & then, somehow, we acquired three, all strays, who shared our house. One died peacefully after ten or so years; the second died not so peacefully from diabetic complications, after nine months of daily insulin shots, morning & night.

& then the third, a tortoiseshell, called Little One because at one time she was the smallest. Now large, & sure of herself because she has no competition, a lizard gut hanging down, & the only one of the three of us who has thrived in this new setting. She sits beside me as I write,

                                                   the cat
on the stool beside me & the hissing heater
keeping us company.

gets the shits when I'm late feeding her, is healthy as all hell & heading happily towards her third decade.

But she will be our last. & may even outlast me.

SEED MONEY

The cat, in
something like a
caterpillar
crawl, descends
the steps to lie in a
portion of shade created
by the corner of the
house. She sticks
her paws out so they rest
in the sun, drawing
on its direct warmth
while the rest of her body
at one remove
stays sheltered &
secure. There are a lot
of potential metaphors
in that pose.