Saturday, January 31, 2009

In Praise of Bucky

Bucky, our black and white tuxedo cat, sits in a patch of winter sunshine.  I altered the photo with Photoshop Elements (love that program).  She's a fine creature, affectionate, playful, and just nervous enough about visitors to quietly excuse herself from the room when they arrive. Nobody complains about Bucky cat.  On these cold winter days and nights she is as warm on my lap as an electric blanket, and in the morning she is a fine alarm clock, wakening me with a slow dance along my hips, and a rumbling hum.

The cat's song
by Marge Piercy

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 as 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 lashes my tail.  Love speaks me entire, a word

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

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

I had a black cat too but very sad my neighbour dogs ate it!

Robert A Vollrath said...

My favorite cat was a black cat named Baby. She tried to talk like a human but never did get one word out.

Joan Sandford-Cook said...

Thanks for sharing Bucky with us and the poem. It seems a catty time for blogs recently as Robert posted his cat Bubba the other day.

laura said...

Great photo, Sherry. I love the twinkling sun spots! Wish I could figure out how to work Photoshop! (I downloaded some free version to try out, but couldn't figure it out!)
Great cat too!!

BARBARA WEEKS said...

Love the photo and the poem~

caseytoussaint said...

This is a wonderful post. I have a black and white tuxedo cat too, although not as well behaved as yours! I love the photo.

Sharon said...

This is a wonderful photo and poem, Sherry. Cats always know just what it takes to make themselves comfortable.