Saoirse

 

[Saoirse]

 

Our new cat has arrived at home.

She’s hiding behind the couch.

Saoirse.

 

Circe is not right.

She is not Circe

Or Saucy or Sauces. Sushi, no.

 

Pronounced Shirr Sea,

like rain on the ocean

making easy silken designs.

 

“Shirr Sea,” we practise

on the friendly side of the couch,

“Shirr Sea, here’s a bowl of water.”

 

Irish as it happens

and it happens with some regularity

wedged behind the couch, purring.

 

Addressed Sir She,

as you would a lady possessed

of the demeanour of lord of the manor.

 

She is white with ginger markings

off the streets her papers say

and only one year old

 

landed on her feet

but for now sweet mews from the couch.

Her thoroughly Irish name means Freedom

 

“Like Saoirse Ronan -

you know, ‘Little Women’!”

“Um vaguely yes of course.”

 

One day fearless she’ll be lord of the manor

walk soft as rain on sea

but on Day Two she’s behind the couch.

Cat

 

[Cat]

 

“Guidelines when Painting“

 

Pierre Bonnard, detail of ‘White Interior (Le Cannet)’ (1932)

 

The carpet must needs be tigerish fire,

symmetry a surprise that never tires –

light, juxtapose with dark to describe desires.

 

The table is a boundary across her view

height of leap, then an object avenue –

colour how litheness darts, slides, waits anew.

 

The teapot has never been more resolute

counterpoint to the cat arch, lively, cute –

make a galleon past which a yacht might scoot.

 

The eyes, closest to the mind in her head

pupils full moons, then thin as thread –

show her very thought in a thousand unsaids.

 

The spine curves through space on all fours

from under chest-of-drawers through French doors –

illustrate how her moving body is first cause.

 

The tail makes a trail in the air, a sign

of the general mood of the solid feline -

attempt to suggest a shrewd curl, a benign whine.

 

The canvas stretched uncracked from side to side

is the room where cat frolics, flirts and hides –

allow considerable contortions, and pride.

 

The brush with life is like the brush of the cat

touch and go the whole time, day in day out -

copy the cat out of wonder at where it’s at.

 

The paint turns nine lives into an organised herd,

there’s what will occur, what occurs and occurred –

ask it to say a few previously unheard words. 

King

 [King]

 

a cat may look at a king

it’s up there for thinking

though what she may see has no knowing

 

a mood swing is a commoner element

signs of showing he’s intelligent

though strangely indifferent to sentiment

 

a cats-eye notes him on his throne

slumped in the dejection zone

emit a low administrative groan

 

a dog sometimes, the way he barks orders

romps with fellow cross-sworders

or glares fiercely at transgressed borders

 

a bird other times darting about

a hair’s breadth away from being found out

winging it while he has the clout

 

a pool is peace to him

makes him feel like he’s in the swim

while it only keeps him vim

 

a kidney may be thrown her way, sardines

chin tickles, tummy rubs, the stroke routines

better than the other extremes

 

news drives him into a deep absorb

this is what comes from having an orb

his portraitist adds an extra daub

 

a penny for his thoughts

is a proposition fraught

best not guess is her best thought

 

his subjects by and large think he’s great

but she’s lost interest in the head-of-state

and wanders off through the garden gate

 

sleep is nice in the halls of power

whiling away a dreamy hour

her neurons soft as a spring shower

 

though even then when time is down

a cat may look at a clown

in her dream trying out his crown

 

Obsequies

 

On Saturday the 15th of June Obsidian Norman Harvey, beloved cat, passed from this life after some weeks of illness. In recent times Obsidian had slowed down, standing under our feet like a three-dimensional shadow. Signs had been of concern for a little while: sleeping all day in the sunniest room of the house, not eating despite variations in diet, shows of disinterest in going outdoors. The diagnoses from the vet kept getting more serious with each return visit. We spent time living between the insistence of maintaining longevity and the knowledge of the grim meaning of certain medical words. In the end, the humane choice became the necessary choice. Saturday was the day that shaped up for the inevitable. By convention we bury our pets under an appropriate flower bush selected from the nursery. In this case lavender was the instant choice, Obsidian spending any amount of charmed hours beneath lavender bushes. Italian flags, English spikes, Spanish butterflies? Bridie read out the choices on her phone from the nursery. In the end we went with traditional French lavender — sturdy, reliable, fragrant, long-lasting. The final visit to the vet was, so I was told, orderly and civilised. Sunday the 16^th of June was rainy and, as it happened, Bloomsday: Mrkgnao. I ventured out early to the annual Joycean seminar at the Arcadia Hotel in South Yarra. Carol and Bridie went to Woodend to see their hairdresser, then lunch at the patisserie. But we knew that mid-afternoon we would be back home to fulfil what we called the Obsequies. Obsie puns abounded throughout his life and this was the most poignant, and obvious. A rainy Sunday, still the rain stayed off for the ceremony: no obstructions. Ground was prepared in the flowerbed under the clothesline, a favourite place for Obsie to coil mortally and observe the passing scene. Held firmly in a pillowcase, Obsidian’s mortal remains were lowered into his resting place. Jonquils went on top, rose petals were scattered; a small felt toy Christmas tree he played with; some dries for the journey. That was the shape of things. Then we had the formal readings. Bridie read Mary Oliver’s poem ‘The First Time Percy Came Back’. Carol read the cat poem from Old Irish ‘Pangur Bán’, the version found in haste (of course) on Wikipedia, i.e. the 1912 translation by Robin Flower. Philip read his own ode to Obsie starting, “Obsidian Norman Harvey comes in through the bathroom window, projected by a silver zoom. A wooden ladder rests against the outside wall, there to assist his scaling and abseiling …” The silver zoom is the stay holding the window open. That done, Bridie and I set the lavender in place and shovelled in good garden dirt. After due space, we went inside to toast some observable memories with our favourite wines.

Cat

 

When making the bed, is the cat simply trying to help? It is a truth of domestic life that no sooner has the human arrived at that moment where the bed from the night before must be set in order for the night to follow, than the cat arrives and proceeds to stand in the middle of the bed, pressing his (or her, as may equally be the case) paw onto the mattress, for what purpose no book has yet explained. Theories doubtless abound, such as the cat is testing for monsters below the surface, a mouse or the like, like their ancestors. Perhaps they are marking the place where they will later curl up in tranquillity, an improbable theory given the extensive period it takes them to hold up progress setting the bed on its return to tranquil unrumpledness. Determination to be under the doona before the doona is even squared and smoothed is an added conundrum. They might frolic and pounce. They might rest quietly (he, she, any of them) beneath these coverings, pretending nothing is happening. Their human is stopped in its tracks, interrupted in the shake and fling of bed-making. The cat has no skills in this area. Its presence seems designed only to provoke annoyance and certain acerbic remarks about feline motives; feline used here in its negative sense. The cat has never done a day’s work in its life and certainly never once while anywhere in the precinct of a bed. Gallantly sheets are tucked into corners and under the trim yet piled mattress. Pillows are made plush and covers puffed to airy lightness by their human, no thanks to the clawing and tramping of the one true possessor of this queen-size quadrangle of languorous linen. The burrowing form curves beneath the spreads, unsettling all efforts at perfect turnouts. A telltale tail curls below the unsheeted sheet, pyramidal ears poke from an unexpected quarter, it is impossible! There’s nothing for it but for the human to fetch its quarry, lifting the nonchalant charmer from its fun and delicately plopping the cat on the floor in a graceful four-point soft landing. Is the cat a creature of ritual? At the very least, this temporary stoppage to the domestic routine must occur some hundreds of times in a given lifetime, cat and human alike. The human frets, the cat licks its fur. The human huffs, the cat stands and stares, giving a brief thought to its next move. The human must hurry or the cat will hop gaily into the centre of the bed again, else preen a while in anticipation. The human has one minute, the cat has all day. Duty duly done, the cat’s human gives the edges a final brush and is out of there, for the thousandth time this lifetime, leaving her (or equally, him) to sharpen claws against the bedpost before ascending the bed and choosing a snug area whereat to turn into a snoozing curl and turn in for a few hours of undivided at long last tranquillity. Humans, what to make of them?     

Obsidian

 

Obsidian Norman Harvey comes in through the bathroom window, projected by a silver zoom. A wooden ladder rests against the outside wall, there to assist his scaling and abseiling from said yonder window. His firm smooth figure tiptoes on sill, leaps to floor tile, gravitates to door awhile, black as his name. Really it’s a case of checking for food and marking boundaries, round the clock, however on days of extreme it means sniffing out the warmest or coolest locale in the rooms available, all depending on the season. Our excitement at seeing this noirish feline, our finer feelings about the long-tailed history of his species, are minor matters to him as he pads towards warm or, depending, it’s all in the feel, cool. If he requires attention he will let us know, with a body caress across the ankles, circling presence then cross-weave, or sudden buffet of the knuckles with his forehead. This last gesture means he wants us to tickle his skull, smooth his coat, and speak sweet nothings until he is a purring ball of sop snuggled nearby. Miaous are not his thing, leading to the impression that our cat is the tall dark and handsome quiet type. His metabolism and feistiness make up for this absence, traces of Oriental maybe Burmese we think, as he pushes his weight against us mere humans or pounces with a right claw that we like to pretend is all playfulness. Eventually he curls into one of his best pitch-black mandalas that remind us of why he is the centre of the universe, at least for a few hours each day. What does he dream about? Is he, like us, sorting out the seven sins of his life in a Dada theatre? Or is he a clean slate, black as night, indifferent to chalking up the pluses and minuses of psyche? The centre of the universe isn’t saying, calm as, unobserved by any known telescope. Technically Obsidian is not our cat, he is Bridie’s cat. This is not only true according to the unwritten law of the household, but also in terms of the overwhelming main source of attention, affection, and alimentary additives. Thanks to this triple-A rating he awakes alive again to exit via the silver lever and sliding scale of bliss into the garden, clawed. There he stalks through broad beans, inspects the insects, ducks a mynah, scrambles over a fence in search of unknowns that commensurably are generally the same unknowns he explores every other day of the month. That quiver by the compost bin rivets his frame, but was it a mouse or a falling leaf? Soon he will excavate something exquisite from the outside storage room, to be dragged like a length of sky along the path and into the house, there to be presented officially and lengthily at our feet, with a tiny Oriental phoneme of pride and mission accomplished: a silken bathrobe of sapphire and almost obsidian (you could say) design, otherwise destined for the op shop.

 

 

In celebration of International Cat Day (August the 8^th), here are some words about Obsidian. The photograph is one of our favourites of Obsie, sitting in a garden container, the king of all he surveys.

 

 

Cat (July)

Snooks and dark have a ‘k’: Snooks is the dark one. Moxie’s cappuccino-coloured. Snooks is sooky, his teeth hurt, and he misses his owners. Moxie is aloof and her fur is creamy. Snooks is smoochie. Moxie scrutinises, as though we have done something wrong, again. Snooks, after extra fresh meat, is wont to turn into a tyrant. Snooks and Moxie watch the chooks, Lydia and Phoebe, with indifference. Snooks and Moxie chatter madly when rosellas appear in the garden. Snooks always rests on top of maternal Moxie, when they curl up together. July is a dream by the auspicious fire.

Cat (June)

 

'Hand with Bowl and Cat', Nuenen, 1885

Visiting Van Gogh. Or not. Stay at home. Inside. No inspiration. Just me, and the cat. Not trying to prove anything. Whatever. The cat, same contained position. Is it important? A world-shattering statement. Poetry, or anything, what’s it doing anyway? Universalising or particularising. The cat watches from her pillow.  It’s not an ego thing. It’s less and less an ego thing. The hand lifts a bowl of water, or milk. Water, milk. A room in June, where the art will do precisely nothing. Or something. Tap a tambourine. Say what? Make a speech. Pencil on paper. Ten minutes. Roly-poly cat!

Cat (January)

 

That is not a cat. That is a question with no chance of an answer. That is a map of your garden on four legs. An advance that was a retreat before it was curl or snoop. Science is exhaustive on the subject, but finally frankly science is a load of words. Let me spell that out. Literature pretends to cover all bases. It would, wouldn’t it? Words! What we’re looking at here is about to get reactions. It’s a rattrap followed by a nap. It’s why January is cool where it’s cool. A suggestion that’s filling a triple-decker novel.

Cat (April)

In cuneiform uniform Indo-European Ur-Cat walked on soft paws her chosen directions. She was Hebrew Chatul, adaptable to home or exile, where her Egyptian profile retrieved lost time. Kot was Russian before Russia. Her German whiles went well and Yiddish made a play of Katz. How she transformed into Gatto, turned up to curl up Chat, is lost in misseds of time. Hiberno-Anglo-Caledonian Cat sat on the mat, then serious ships took her colonising, stranger in strange lands. Two of her descendants nap in our precinct, quiet April and the black ball of energy, Obsidian, making up for lost time.

Red (January)

Hair a heinz of titian, ginger, rust. Battler from Carlton backlanes. Mouth to make a meal of. Neighbours heard his purr. He was a night factory. Landed up in Balwyn. House of the Homeless. Claws were his finer points. Picked open cabinets. Ate half the fruitcake. Telltale teethmarks in almond icing. Dragged the Sunday roast round the backyard. Body a half-tamed fire, a breathing constellation. Slept the length of the bed. Elongated tiger. Thought some: not a cat, a machine. Standing near rubble left of redbrick fence. Whiskers wire. Red answered to no-one. Eyes a January dream, a June statement.