Levinas

And then my cat turned to me and said,

If things are only things, it is because

our relation with them is established

as understanding, in terms of a totality

that gives them meaning. I love that cat

but wondered if her eyes were too cute,

too large like those of sentimental children

come to eat the heart and all that’s in it.

The immediate, she added, cannot be

an object of understanding. And I could not

tell if what she wanted was understanding.

Meow, she said. Was it food she wanted,

~

Make no mistake. I do not trust those

who love cats more than people. Or worse,

those who would ribbon them, dress them up.

What fun is pretending if it succeeds

too well. The cry out there understands

less and less the more I read there. A comfort.

To think a cat feels nothing for the fruits

and chemicals others take for food.

But who am I to say, the sentimentalist

of a skeptical nature. Long ago

I thought this love was impossible

without empathy. But that was me.

My cat is another story. The plural of I

is not we, she says. Or something like that.

~

And I came to a kitchen at the end

of the world, to the foul odor that says

people sacrifice a lot for the animal.

I called my creature good because

she was not listening. I call her kind

because her needs would feed us, make us

open a thousand cans that smell disgusting.

But we were children once. Without a thought

to ask our parents how their day was.

The invention of kindness was slow, unkind.

The deferential behavior of our pets

a thing that came on us in time, pretending.

Imagine first a life without a beast.

Or a parent who did not feed you, pet you.

~

When a cat dies, you grieve naturally.

You wait. You buy another. Your photos

shift position on the crowded mantle.

You see things in a patch of sunlight

you know are dreams and so believed.

Loneliness is just that strong sometimes.

If your personal monsters touch you

with soft coats and superstitious behaviors,

it speaks to something too specific and vague

for words. You the god grown mysterious

to these affinities with whom you sleep,

wake, and wake a little more. Always

the promise of a greater light, the dwarf

thunder of calm that shivers in your arms.