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Cats Are Poetry in Motion

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April is national Poetry Month and some say cats are poetry in motion. In honor of cats and poetry, I’d like to share a favorite poem about love and cats. The author wrote about his encounter with a street cat in Rome on the day he would say good-bye to the woman loved.
another insane devotion-poem-cats

Another Insane Devotion by Gerald Stern

This was gruesome—fighting over a ham sandwich
with one of the tiny cats of Rome, he leaped
on my arm and half hung on to the food and half
hung on to my shirt and coat. I tore it apart
and let him have his portion, I think I lifted him
down, sandwich and all, on the sidewalk and sat
with my own sandwich beside him, maybe I petted
his bony head and felt him shiver. I have
told this story over and over; some things
root in the mind; his boldness, of course, was frightening
and unexpected—his stubbornness—though hunger
drove him mad. It was the breaking of boundaries,
the sudden invasion, but not only that it was
the sharing of food and the sharing of space; he didn’t
run into an alley or into a cellar,
he sat beside me, eating, and I didn’t run
into a trattoria, say, shaking,
with food on my lips and blood on my cheek, sobbing;
but not only that, I had gone there to eat
and wait for someone. I had maybe an hour
before she would come and I was full of hope
and excitement. I have resisted for years
interpreting this, but now I think I was given
a clue, or I was giving myself a clue,
across the street from the glass sandwich shop.
That was my last night with her, the next day
I would leave on the train for Paris and she would
meet her husband. Thirty-five years ago
I ate my sandwich and moaned in her arms, we were
dying together; we never met again
although she was pregnant when I left her—I have
a daughter or son somewhere, darling grandchildren
in Norwich, Connecticut, or Canton, Ohio.
Every five years I think about her again
and plan on looking her up. The last time
I was sitting in New Brunswick, New Jersey,
and heard that her husband was teaching at Princeton,
if she was still married, or still alive, and tried
calling. I went that far. We lived
in Florence and Rome. We rowed in the bay of Naples
and floated, naked, on the boards. I started
to think of her again today. I still
am horrified by the cat’s hunger. I still
am puzzled by the connection. This is another
insane devotion, there must be hundreds, although
it isn’t just that, there is no pain, and the thought
is fleeting and sweet. I think it’s my own dumb boyhood,
walking around with Slavic cheeks and burning
stupid eyes. I think I gave the cat
half of my sandwich to buy my life, I think
I broke it in half as a decent sacrifice.
It was this I bought, the red coleus,
the split rocking chair, the silk lampshade.
Happiness. I watched him with pleasure.
I bought memory. I could have lost it.
How crazy it sounds. His face twisted with cunning.
The wind blowing through his hair. His jaw working.

Gerald Stern, “Another Insane Devotion” from Lovesick Poems. Copyright © 1987 by Gerald Stern. Reprinted by permission of the author. Poetry.org

It’s one of our dear blogger friend’s birthday today. Visit Marg at Marg’s Animals

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