DENNIS

I get so caught up in my human life… in the day to day. I think I am so important. Every once in awhile I stop & think “I wonder what my cat is doing right now” What do cats do all day? What is their day like? I am rushing hither & yon. Preoccupied. Busy. Busy. Busy. Do they sit on the window sill for the morning & watch the clouds in the sky & the traffic in the street? How many naps do they actually take?  The luxury of a bath. I never do that anymore. What if I had all morning just for my whiskers? Cats see in the fifth dimension that is for sure. They live in the world I visit only in my dreams. Human intelligence is so limited. I commit myself to seeing with the inner eyes of all the other intelligences in this vast universe. Thanks for opening my eyes Dennis. I get it.

JAGUAR

Live in the Mystery. Dreams are places of mystery. Dreams prove the world we live in is far more curious than imagined. “Curiouser & curiouser” as Alice said. Dreams are not simply a by product of the cyber firing of the neural networks of our brain chemistry. I am visited in my dreams by messengers from another world. Big cats prowl in the rain forest. The Snow Leopard. The Black Panther. The Golden Jaguar. They watch me. They protect me. I am soft & vulnerable as white tabby cat. I sleep with my electric blanket on the memory foam beside the natural gas-fired fireplace watching images flicker across a wall & I forget my warrior self. I forget my courage & my will power & my mission. I nod off into a pleasant little nap. The fronds of the canary grass shift under the tall Mimosa trees in the green jungles of my sleep & I see the gold eyes watching… watching... watching...

AND SO DEAR TOAD

Asleep upon the forest floor,

 A stroke across my face... one touch, no more

An alchemy of one plus one... a drop of dew....

A whisper once, then twice... oh, is it you?  

A place I passed a thousand times before 

I saw nothing but the sketches of my tiny mind.

Now I see the glisten gloom, the shimmer shakes

The sudden form the very stillness takes.

& so, dear toad, I come at last to thee

With jaguar eyes & softest gaze I see

Your throat as white as the Milky Way

Your eyes black pools in midnight caves

Your jewelled skin as ancient as a newborn babe

The sacrament of sun; at once, at once, I am awake!

With jaguar eyes & softest gaze I see

& so, dear toad, I come at last to thee

& so, dear toad, I come at last to thee

DAY DREAMS of DENNIS

   My daughter Cecilia had a gentle cat named Dennis. His fur was soft... white as an April bunny rabbit. He had a pink nose. Alas, to escape the noises of the day, he climbed into the still-warm, wheel well of the neighbour’s car. When the engine started the inevitable happened. Mercifully it was instantaneous. I paint this little homage to the brief life of a beautiful creature for my beautiful daughter. 

    I often wonder what cats think of while lying in the dust-moted columns of the afternoon sun. They know an ancient wisdom. House cats meditate on memories of the life of the big predator felines.. leopards, ocelots & sabre-tooths. In my dreams sun-spangled jaguars drift in the shadows of the rain forest & watch my every move. My ancestors carved images of the Jaguar-Gods… half men… half cats into the walls of their Sun-temples. If I stop thinking for a moment & let my mind slip free I remember the day dreams of all those cats.