Way back in 1990 or so, I was a college student who carried cards with the title “World’s Oldest Pre-med.” I had decided not to have any pets (I’d been kind of a crazy cat person before) until after I got through my medical education. It didn’t seem fair to have pets when I knew my time would be so in demand for studies.
Then I found a feral cat with a litter of seven kittens under my house. The mom had mastitis, was overwhelmed, and unable to feed the kittens. I had kitten formula on hand (crazy cat person) and started bottle-feeding the kittens, and the mom ran off. I nursed all the kittens to reasonable health, and then set about finding homes for them. Only the hairless, tiny, pathetic runt stayed with me. He grew up to be my soul cat. I found homes for all the rest, but it wasn’t easy.
Recently a neighbor lost her beloved kitten. HA said I should look to see if I’d written any cat poetry that might be appropriate. I hadn’t read this in over thirty years.
You’ll find better homes, I’m sure, than this
Where every one of seven had to share
My feeble attentions and parceled part of love;
Homes where each the king or queen of all
Surveyed might be, where each the single center
Of some stray human’s heart might occupy.
Your eyes reflect confused fear at this
Unaccustomed touch by hands so like
The ones that held you, stroked you, treated you
And made you well, but different hands are these.
So different are your eyes from when, so small,
They stared not understanding but with trust
At me as each I held. I thought that each
Small purring breath might be the last I see.
The fear was mine alone, so much that I
Turned to friends and lovers, then at last to
Perfect strangers — they who bade us well.
Now with timid boldness you roam forth
And seek with fuzz and buzz and sandy tongues
Your own paths and lives and loves and homes.
Will you remember in some hidden part
Of kitten mind, the home where once you lived
And almost died? Will some spot of distant
Understanding dawn, some memory of
Baths and dips and pills and shots and cremes,
Cages, toys and bottles, brushes, some harsh
Words and lots and lots of desperate love?
Do not mind. You’ve battles of your own
To think on now. Grow and love, my friends,
For memory lives on in me. Fare well.
—2p