ClaryCat this spring — do you glimpse the light bell around her neck, as she trots, scampers, walks about I hear a light gay tinkling bell
When my girls were young,
I would tell them,
Don’t be like me.
Don’t be like me.
Now I tell my cats
Don’t be lonely.
Don’t be lonely.
Don’t be like me.
Dear friends and readers,
The Times Literary Supplement has published another new poem by Clive James:
The sun seems in control, the tide is out:
Out to the sandbar shimmers the lagoon.
The little children sprint, squat, squeal and shout.
These shallows will be here until the moon
Contrives to reassert its influence,
And anyway, by then it will be dark.
Old now and sick, I ponder the immense
Ocean upon which I will soon embark:
As if held in abeyance by dry land
It waits for me beyond that strip of sand.
It won’t wait long. Just for the moment, though,
There’s time to question if my present state
Of bathing in this flawless afterglow
Is something I deserve. I left it late
To come back to my family. Here they are,
Camped on their towels and putting down their books
To watch my grand-daughter, a natural star,
Cartwheel and belly-flop. The whole scene looks
As if I thought it up to soothe my soul.
But in Arcadia, Death plays a role:
A leading role, and suddenly I wake
To realise that I’ve been sound asleep
Here at my desk. I just wish the mistake
Were rare, and not so frequent I could weep.
The setting alters, but the show’s the same:
One long finale, soaked through with regret,
Somehow designed to expiate self-blame.
But still there is no end, at least not yet:
No cure, that is, for these last years of grief
As I repent and yet find no relief.
My legs are sore, and it has gone midnight.
I’ve had my last of lounging on the beach
To see the sweet oncoming sunset light
Touching the water with a blush of peach,
Smoothing the surface like a ballroom floor
As all my loved ones pack up from their day
And head back up the cliff path. This for sure:
Even the memories will be washed away,
If not by waves, by rain, which I see fall,
Drenching the flagstones and the garden wall.
My double doors are largely glass. I stand
Often to contemplate the neat back yard
My elder daughter with her artist’s hand
Designed for me. This winter was less hard
Than its three predecessors were. The snow
Failed to arrive this time, but rain, for me,
Will also do to register time’s flow.
The rain, the snow, the inexorable sea:
I get the point. I’ll climb the stairs to bed,
Perhaps to dream I’m somewhere else instead.
All day tomorrow I have tests and scans,
And everything that happens will be real.
My blood might say I should make no more plans,
And when it does so, that will be the deal.
But until then I love to speak with you
Each day we meet. Sometimes we even touch
Across the sad gulf that I brought us to.
Just for a time, so little means so much:
More than I’m worth, I know, as I know how
My death is something I must live with now.
You will doubtless recall Jim liked the poetry of Clive James, James’s “Sentenced to Life,” and how I am left with four books by James from the which Jim would read aloud to me. And the poem TLS published by James about these the last of his life a couple of months ago. James’s end is much easier than Jim’s was, as he admits a kind of Arcadia (compared to most).
Henry Moore (Bill Brandt), 1946 (silver gelatin print)
Sylvia
Under the Sign of Sylvia II 
From a friend:
To a Cat” — Jorge Luis Borges
Poetry
“To a Cat,” a poem by Jorge Luis Borges—
Mirrors are not more silent
nor the creeping dawn more secretive;
in the moonlight, you are that panther
we catch sight of from afar.
By the inexplicable workings of a divine law,
we look for you in vain;
More remote, even, than the Ganges or the setting sun,
yours is the solitude, yours the secret.
Your haunch allows the lingering
caress of my hand. You have accepted,
since that long forgotten past,
the love of the distrustful hand.
You belong to another time. You are lord
of a place bounded like a dream.
I replied:
I liked the poem very much — beautiful, especially if you agree. It’s silly to argue but I can’t help but say I have found cats not to be remote, to seek companionship continually, especially if their “human being” reciprocates at all, to not simply accept, but love in return. We all come from a time deep in the past — all life.
My friend:
“Borges has a very beautiful short story : The South, in which he explains more about this word: Remote. I mean it is my own interpretation .This is that part:
At the railroad station he noted that he still had thirty minutes. He quickly recalled that in a cafe on the Calle Brazil (a few dozen feet from Yrigoyen’s house) there was an enormous cat which allowed itself to be caressed as if it were a disdainful divinity. He entered the cafe. There was the cat, asleep. He ordered a cup of coffee, slowly stirred the sugar, sipped it (this pleasure had been denied him in the clinic), and thought, as he smoothed the cat’s black coat, that this contact was an illusion and that the two beings, man and cat, were as good as separated by a glass, for man lives in time, in succession, while the magical animal lives in the present, in the eternity of the instant.”
Me: Ahhhh …. now I see it. Well then we are all in this illusion and I shall tell this to my Clarycat who is sat on my chair just behind me as I type ….
My friend:
I wish I were your cat dear Ellen.
Me: I’ve discovered my cat’s inner nature and bought this outer one forth since Jim died. I feel a bit guilty that I didn’t act this way before and wish he could see me and how the cat and I are together.
Another friend, John:
“I have always noticed your cats on your blog. Therefore, I must tell you our cat story. Eight days ago, I noticed a mother cat and her very tiny kittens where we put the recycling and garbage cans. Later, I went to the basement and noticed them there, sitting in an area where the coal from fifty years ago still sits. It turns out that the exhaust hose from the dryer had come loose from the hole in the wall. The mother cat had her litter in our basement. I didn’t call the various pet societies because they would euthanize them and the little ones are too small to be moved. Instead, I put out food and water for the nursing mother. The first day was a Saturday and the only food we had for cats was expensive albacore tuna. She gulped it down. Since then she has eaten cheap tuna, raw chicken gizzards and canned mackerel as well as roast beef. She doesn’t thank me, however, she bares her teeth. During the day the cats play in a safe part of the driveway and at night sleep in our basement. I am sure Mother will move them when they are ready. I am just trying to keep them alive until they are ready to either go to a shelter or brave the wild.
We have been taking care of ML’s son’s dog since Easter. She is an old dog and will return in a month or so to her owner. Actually it is I who takes care of the dog as ML is not capable of doing so. I also feed the cats. ML loves the dog and she makes her happy. ML has seen the cats a few times and I report on their progress. I thought you might be amused.
Me:
Yes — well it gives me hope — it is so very kind of you. I had a stray cat I kept alive in Leeds for the second year I lived there. He was a tom and was a tough outdoors cat but he somehow got into our flat, I fed him, he began to visit regularly and within a month or so, he came every day to eat and during the day or night at some point slept near us.
I find much comfort in my two cats. I feel guilty because I really didn’t interact with them before he died the way I do now. He did much more. The girl finds me not quite satisfactory because she would like to play in a rough way I can’t do. But she accept this. The boy has become far more affectionate and open since I began to respond more.
It is very true, the more you give cats, the more they give you. Ours love us dearly and demonstratively, as we do them. When I was away, Marshy mourned and was inconsolable; since my return she has been extra clingy, putting her little paws around me at night and not letting me out of her sight for long. In England, my friends smiled because I took pictures of both their grandchildren and their cat. Only they saw a difference.
Thank you for the comment. I feel bad about leaving them for the coming JASNA. We have to fly there on the Wednesday and could not get a flight back until Sunday at 2 so the cats will be alone 4 nights and 3 days and 2 2/s days. The last time both of us traveled together (this past January, 7 days and nights) I had photos from Caroline showing me Ian looking just distraught. They haunt me.
When you go, you leave your husband and son there. Caroline came as did her friend for an hour and more but it’s not the same.
From Diana:
Copied from Colette’s Claudine Married. Claudine has gone away with her husband, leaving her cat Fanchette in the family home. Her servant writes…
“Melie wrote to me also, well describing Fanchette’s state of mind since my departure; how she had wailed in desolation for days and days. But Melie’s handwriting is so hieroglyphic that it is impossible to keep up a sustained correspondence with her.
Fanchette was mourning me! The thought of this haunted me wherever I went. All the time I was on my travels, I started at the sight of every lean tom-cat fleeing round the corner of a wall. Over and over again, to Renaud’s surprise, I have let go his arm to run up to a she-cat, sitting sedately on a doorstep and say to her: ‘My Sweeeet!’ Often the little animal would be shocked and tuck in her chin, with a dignified movement, against her ruffled shirt-front. But I would insist, adding a series of shrill onomatopoeic noises in a minor key until I saw the green eyes melt into gentleness and narrow in a smile. Then the flat, caressing head would rub hard against the door-post in polite greeting and the cat would turn round three times, which clearly meant: ‘I like you.'”
Then they move to their new apartment:
“Would Fanchette consent to live here? I saw her again at Papa’s flat in the Rue Jacob, my darling white beautiful. She had not been warned of my return and it made my heart heavy to see her prostrate with emotion at my feet, unable to utter a sound, while, with my hand on her warm pink stomach, I tried vainly to count the wild pulsations of her heart. I laid her on her side to comb her dulled coat; at that familiar gesture, she raised her head with a look full of so many things – reproach, unfailing love, torment accepted with joy…Oh, little white animal, how close I feel to you because I understand you so well!”