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.

SOLSTICE

I love the moment, the hour, the day when the sunlight starts to come back. The Winter Solstice. St. Lucy's day. Advent. The darkness on the Prairies in December nudges me into the folds of my parka... into the cushions of my sofa in the chilly studio... into the deep caves of my melancholy. Today I breathe easier. Morning comes moments earlier. Time itself inspires... expires & I feel the opening up of possibility once again. Our solar system unfurls the overture of life returning in the lengthening of days. I worry too much. Life is so precious... so beautiful. I have the great gift of days ahead of me. I am releasing the knots from my brow..the kinks in my soul & celebrating the sun rising anew from the cold white fields of Saskatchewan, like the Phoenix lifting  from the ashes. I am so glad to be alive today. Yes. That is my word today. YES! Today & always.... YES!!!

SUMMER OF LOVE

1967 was  a pivot year. Everything changed. I was alive. I was there. It was the end of innocence…. the beginning of what we are now becoming. That was the year of the great American car… the chariot of the American Dream. The car as the machine of destiny… speed, beauty, grace, steel & glass. The Mustang. The Cougar. The Charger. The SS Chevelle. You could fall in love with a car that year. You could fall in love with humanity that year. The fruits of civilization seemed tangible. At the wheel of an internal combustion engine. Power at the tips of your toes. The sky blue and vast. The full moon still unblemished…. virginal.  The air pure. The highways sketched like silver threads out to the horizon. On the Road… born to be wild. It all changed after that…. it all changed. A car means something different now. We are different. The innocence is ended. We are starting to know ourselves as we truly are. The road still stretches out ahead. Does the sun rise?  Does the sun set?

BIG BANG