Poetry Thusday - Cat Tales

While I've been home this week, I've spent even more time than usual with the cats. During which they've been trying to kill me heal me, with their acupuncture and massage techniques (cats are holistic practitioners; though many of them also train as surgeons). So I thought I would offer up this Marge Piercy  poem as tribute to them  (shh! they're watching - act natural! it's also a peace offering -  one of their number - Mr. Peanut {pictured here on safari}, is on antibiotics, too.  surprisingly,  the other cats are actually envious; they think he's receiving extra treats and attention. I think they're plotting a coup... send catnip, please*).

(click on thumbnails to see larger - sorry these aren't cleaner; not up to fiddling with them right now. I probably shouldn't even be posting them. Can you tell I'm feverish?)   

Cats, your gift is a song, and this one's for you:

                    The Cat's Song

Mine, says the cat, putting out his paw of darkness
My lover, my friend, my slave, my toy, says
the cat making on your chest his gesture of drawing
milk from his mother's forgotten breasts.

Let us walk in the woods, says the cat.
I'll teach you to read the tabloid of scents,
to fade into shadow, wait like a trap. to hunt.
Now I lay this plump warm mouse on your mat.

You feed me. I try to feed you. we are friends,
says the cat, although I am more equal than you.
Can you leap twenty times the height of your body?
Can you run up and down trees? Jump between roofs?

Let us rub our bodies together and talk of touch.
My emotions are pure as salt crystals and as hard.
My lusts glow like my eyes. I sing to you in the mornings,
walking round and round your bed and into your face.

Come I will teach you to dance as naturally
as falling asleep and waking and stretching long, long,
I speak greed with my paws and fear with my whiskers.
Envy lases my tail. Love speaks me entire, word

on fur. I will teach you to be still as an egg
and to slip like the ghost of wind through the grass.

                                                 Marge Piercy

*Thankfully it is only one cat that I have to medicate (and he's actually being cooperative!) - unlike this lady.

Wish us all well - luckily for me, they aren't lion-sized or I'd be reciting this gentleman's poem:

I am singing this song from inside of a lion
and it's very dark in here.
So please excuse the mumbled words
Which may not be too clear.
But this afternoon by the lion's cage.
I'm afraid I got too near.
So I'm singing this song
from inside the lion
And it's very dark in here...

And wet...

And dark...

And cold...

And lonely.

Shel Silverstein

Click here to see more Poetry Thursday participants. Some of whom actually participated in the optional prompt.  What can I say - I'm lucky the cats let me sit alone at the computer long enough to post this much.

Gotta go - they're moving into position; I think they're plotting their initial assault on the mouse!