On a Monday

Cats were popular at our recent Voices and Vision event. Here are three of the images, by Beth Bale,  Vangi Cathcart,  and Marilyn Penrod, respectively, followed by Bonnie Korta's poem.

The Calling of Cats

The naming of cats is the easy part

Lespedeza and Clover, Hay Bale Sisters

rolled out a surprise from some farmer’s sweet bundle

Angelisa, snow white feather fluff

flew in on the day my friend Lisa diedWillow, silver soul, for catkins lush in spring

Miss America star blazing on her head

stripes all over, salute to the red, white, and blue after 9/11

There’s logic, there’s charm to the naming of cats

calling them, a different story altogether

though we’ve been given dominion

over the beasts of the field, the fowls

of the air, by God, in the beginning

over the cats of our hearths, not so much

cats do not bow their heads to us

see themselves still as wild and free

do not like to be owned, bossed, dominated

They come when they damn well please or not at all

so I call to mine in a shrill anxious jitter

“Here kitty, kitty, kitty, KITTY”

desperation pulses in every syllable

if calling fails as it usually does

I resort to begging, hyperbole

Precious Princess Pussy Willow, WILL-Z, Willowicious

my only Willow girl please come home

My husband used to say, in his inimitable way

“If you’d lived in Salem when they burned witches,

I’d hate to think” and he left it at that

my daughter more vocal, “You must drive your neighbors

crazy calling your cats all day, all night long

it’s just so annoying”

When all else fails, I sing, to each her own

theme song, Angelisa to the tune of

Messiah’s Hallelujah Chorus

Angelisa, Angelisa, ANGELISA

for Willow it's “Silly Willy is the girl I love”

to the tune of “Bloody Mary” from South Pacific

for Miss America, its “Bye bye Miss American

Pie, drove my Chevy to the levy” and so on

my daughter covers her ears, pretends

she doesn’t know me

“Shut up Mom, please just shut up”

I wonder how I raised such a proper

child who is more a stranger to me

than cats who do not come when I call

My daughter doesn’t know the sweet relief

I feel when the silver shadow that is

Willow comes up radiant out of the dark

winds her soft iridescence round my ankle

stakes her claim of ownership, not vice versa

My daughter has no idea how my heart

would leap if she would come home, just once

happy to be there, wrap her luminescence

round my neck, claim me as her own

I have never learned the words, the tone the tune

to call my daughter, to call my daughter

home