Christine gave the RWP community a prompt about elegies and remembrances a couple of weeks ago.
I wasn’t going to share anything beyond an American Sentence for 9/11, for elegies. But there was a synergistic moment. A very good friend’s mother died earlier this summer. Her memorial was the first week of September. That same friend’s cat, a companion of nearly 18-years, died the week before her mother’s memorial. I wrote a little prose poem to tuck inside a card, a separate from the mother’s card, for her cat. I could write to the the personality of the cat as I could not her mother. I knew the cat best. My friend said it touched her, that it meant a great deal. That I captured the essence of her cat. It was a comfort.
Poetry-friends: That is the most I could ever hope for from my writing. To make someone I love feel better. Perhaps, you might say, writing poetry to a cat is not enough in this world. I think it might just be.
* * *
For Proust, For Donna
A little cat. A little black cat with small ears and green eyes. A little cat that has as much soul as any two-legged creature. A little black cat that gathers the room, a house. His personality radiates from a handled basket in the bar, from a perch in the touring car’s back seat.
A dapper little man in a fur coat. Tidy. Commanding but never shrill. A quizzical Jack Benny look that brings a smile. You laugh out loud.
A lilting gait, a bit of a wobble. You wear your purr like another would a cane with a jeweled top.
Pick me up and rest me on your shoulder – I see the world in you and through you. I shall always be your little cat. Love ~ Proust.
* * *
Is it perfect poetry? No. But it meant something to someone. And that is enough. A remembrance.
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on Sep 20th, 2008 at 2:39 am
Yeah, you just might have something here!
Love the line ‘A dapper little man in a fur coat.’
on Sep 20th, 2008 at 12:39 pm
Very nice — his personality really comes through. Cats so personify Whitman’s “Do I contradict myself? Very well then I contradict myself” :-)
on Sep 20th, 2008 at 4:45 pm
“quizzical Jack Benny look” brought me a smile too, and I didn’t even know the cat!
on Sep 21st, 2008 at 1:05 am
Don’t we write to connect? I think we do. And you touched someone when they needed it. Well done.
on Sep 21st, 2008 at 1:39 am
not perfect poetry but a good read…
“You wear your purr like another would a cane with a jeweled top.” is a good image, and not the only one…
on Sep 21st, 2008 at 2:16 am
we give where we can, how we can, when we can, and i can see how this would provide sweet comfort in a time of loss
on Sep 21st, 2008 at 7:45 pm
Thanks for your comments, poets. Thanks for visiting and reading. Hugs!
on Sep 24th, 2008 at 12:24 pm
Awww.
As you may remember, I’m a cat person, so don’t think I’m belittling the power in this poem with the non-specificity of “Awww”–because poems about pets are all about capturing that amazing relationship. And you totally got it.
on May 6th, 2009 at 8:47 am
[...] 2008 Proust [...]
on May 6th, 2009 at 9:16 am
I missed this one the first time around. Your descriptions of Proust are wonderful. Beautiful tribute. I could see this piece illustrated, like a graphic poem.