Mr. Zobinsky the cat was fundamental love,
not given as a matter of choice,
but being as matter of fact.
He had a predilection for presence.
He was the whirling magneto
around which the fractured fragments
of our world revolved.
Sitting at my desk I knew without seeing that
in other rooms an ambient consciousness
was lurking among stacked books,
dirty dishes, remote controls,
cold ashes in the fireplace waiting for snooping feet.
Living room, bedroom, on the bed,
order exuded from his mammalian body,
creating a perimeter of poise around
a poverty of doubt and a luxurious confidence.
The cat had preferences, to be sure,
fresh food over stale,
wet over dry,
tuna over oysters,
cotton over burlap,
in summer,
outside not in,
prowling the garden
for a damp moss nap among roses.
He lived in the zone of happening,
no plans, no regrets,
time pooled and puddled,
reverberating eddies of now
on the sunlit carpeted floor.
No shame vis-à-vis the animal he was,
never more nor less than cat,
never questioning the source of animation
that enlivened him.
We assigned him many qualities, many thoughts,
held monologues of dialogue late into the night.
I would have loved to hear him tell his story,
how it was for him under our brave roof,
who he thought we were and why,
and the role he played,
the need we had for animal company.
In the daily tug of will against will
he offered quick forgiveness at our constant winning,
accepting his role in the order of things as the Lord of Grace.
He did not try to teach,
but from feline example
we tried to learn from what he knew
and likewise what he missed.
He missed the complexities we wound around our world
in one sense, but in the other sense he did not miss them.
His life was not filtered through a lens of ought.
He made sufficient sense of sight and smell and sound
and knew that tone and touch and fresh water was love.
He had no use for the metaphor of “sleep”
which brought us comfort at his end.
What spoke to him was tender voice and touch
as his rhythmic heart relaxed its duties and lost the beat.
In the sun house of a winter afternoon
and the shadowed house at night,
his absence follows me down the hall on silent feet,
his absence is present on the bed.
2015