Pets, Pets, Pets
by Joanne Anderson
 | | Cali, 1-year tortie in top photo, and Beach Boy, below delightful Lab mix, waiting for homes at Babylon Town Shelter. |
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Throughout history cats have sparked social conscience and creativity in the greatest of minds. To DaVinci "the smallest feline was a masterpiece"; to Schweitzer "music and cats were the two means of refuge from the misery of life"; to Hemingway "a cat had absolute honesty." Edgar Allan Poe and Sir Walter Scott envied the cat's mystery. Even an unknown feline philosopher, no relation to Descartes, once joked: "I purr, therefore I am."
For Dr. Joan Digby, LI University Humanities professor, compassion and cats complement curriculum. An advocate of TNR (Trap Neuter Return), Dr. Digby, along with her colleagues, manages an inconspicuous yet content colony of campus cats. Her Honors students design cat shelters that blend with college architecture. The ferals in her care inspire Dr. Digby to compose picturesque poetry. The following are selected from her collection- A Clowder of Cats:
FERAL COLONY
They come from nowhere
at the
sound of my car.
Gray streaks at first:
dappled Puffball,
Oyster, flat like pewter,
long haired mop of a
philosophical sister called Plato,
yellow-eyed and pensive.
Then from the bushes
a flash of black and white-
Kodak and Ilford
shooting past
at a a hundredth of a second
click, click like fast film.
Now the Clones march slowly on parade,
black with the same white star on their
chests
sporting the mark of a long family line.
Delicate maidens take their time:
she with the white nose,
the shy aunt who lost her tail,
Cleopatra fringed with a golden face,
two hungry tigers
and at last the Red King.
I wait and watch and count and feed,
I call them jeweled movements,
the time pieces
that regulate my morning hour.
LOVE HANDLES
Cats also have love handles,
that wiggle when they walk
like a runway model
in a swing coat
letting each thrust
of her hips reveal
all the soft longing
for the days before
she had her tubes tied.
RITUAL MEAL
The cats didn't know my mother died.
They were simply waiting for the food
I bring them every morning.
"Momma's here," I called as usual,
"Breakfast," as they tripped around my
legs
keen for the opening of cans.
But my momma wasn't here today
and wouldn't be again for an eternity
to come.
Snapping the lids I thought of breakfasts
she had made
and threw myself into the task
of serving up food in my mother's name.
THE OLD MASTER
(SIX-PACK 1988-2006)
It's Thursday
Six-pack is sitting
on a chair in the front row
waiting for class
but no other students have arrived.
He has taken Foundation
fifteen times
and still is yearning
to learn more
about perspective
and figure drawing
With polydactyl paws
he has the means
to be creative
far beyond his kind.
The human students
will not come today
but Six-pack holds his place
meditating on the monumental
plastic form
needed to express
the shape of feline thought.
PAW NOTE: A huge portrait of Six-pack leaning on an art pedestal hangs above Dr. Digby's desk. This majestic tabby lived to be 18, and spent his final years in a loving home off campus.
Poster Pets
Our poster pets at Babylon Town Shelter (643-9270) Lamar St. W. Babylon deserve loving homes too. "Beach Boy" in Cage 69 is a delightful Lab mix, about 1 yr., probably abandoned at Oak Beach. He doesn't belong to anyone there. The shelter thought they'd need to trap him but after several days he jumped right into the truck. He licked us while we removed tons of ticks. "Beach Boy" sits and gives his paw. Also waiting: "Cali", # 18682 a pathetically thin, 1 yr. tortie, who came into the shelter nursing 6 kittens, some still available. She lived with other cats. "Cali" desperately needs a caring person to put some meat on her bones.
Dogs: Husky trio- "Shadow" a purebred male Cage 41, "Rusty" Cage 35, a young female Cage 67; "Moppet"- Beardie mix Cage 91; "Noah"- Chow type Cage 9; "Casper"- cute Jack Russell in the Puppy Room; "Alex"- Shep mix Cage 39.
Cats: "MJ" #18633- super-loving tabby- now appearing in her Spiderman costume; "Ms. Peabody" #18624 -dainty gray uses her paw as a spoon to scoop out one morsel at a time. `+Last Hope-"Dog Walk, BBQ & Fun Night" Sat. 6/2, register at 4:30 at Wantagh Park. Call 516-486-3158 or visit us online at
www.lasthopeanimalrescue.org.
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