<div style="background:#fff;border:#bbb dashed 1px;padding:5px"><a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=476538" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><div style="margin:10px 0"><strong>Dangerous To Love Things That Perish</strong></div><div style="margin:10px 0">for Louise and Morgan</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Dangerous to love things that perish <br>but cowardly not to.<br>You weren't just a cat. <br>You were Morgan.<br>You were <br>as when I first saw you as a kitten<br>cupped in Louise's hands<br>a cloud<br>a whiff of incense <br>smoke<br>a breath <br>a gust of stars<br>someone in love had breathed out.<br>And we loved you. <br>And now you're dead. <br>And there are two more people in the world <br>who can't stop weeping.<br>Because there is no now <br>in the suddenness of death<br>and it's colder in our hearts than it is outside <br>because your absence<br>like your body<br>doesn't have a temperature anymore. <br>And there's a dagger of darkness <br>that's thrust through everything<br>as if God were an assassin <br>in some kind of video killing game<br>that put black holes to shame. <br>Or is it just the impersonality of life <br>that it seems to derive a cheap thrill <br>from killing the things it creates <br>without knowing their names? <br>Morgan. <br>Got it. <br>Morgan the Cat. <br>A work of genius.<br>And you'd be a whole lot wiser than you are <br>not to forget it<br>because she was a goddess in her own rite.<br>She was the auroral shapeshifter <br>that was born a kitten <br>but grew up to be more than a human <br>because we always wished <br>we had more of her characteristics <br>than the ones we had as a superior species<br>and we worshipped her<br>and paid her the attentive kind of tribute <br>that was and is the natural due of her magical virtues. <br>And Morgan though it's doubtful you can hear us now<br>where you can breathe easy out in the open<br>like the cool breeze you always were <br>among the wildflowers that look like stars <br>and copulate with Orion <br>the only cat who ever loved you back <br>as much as you like <br>without any one throwing cold water on it<br>because humans have learned to live like prophylactics<br>we want you to know somehow in some mysterious way <br>our species hasn't discovered yet <br>how much you did to improve our innocence<br>by watching you live your life <br>as if you were born <br>knowing how to live<br>and didn't have to work at it as we do.<br>You were tenderness with claws. <br>A female buddha with the eyes of a warrior <br>that were the envy of the moon.<br>A boddhicatva who didn't answer to anyone<br>if you can forgive a bad pun<br>but showed us the way in <br>to the feline felicity of a paradise<br>that was as open as space to everyone. <br>You were the embodiment<br>of an affection and gentleness <br>that lingered like smoke in the air <br>above the cat's eye flame of a candle <br>that God just blew out. <br>And the stars mourn as we do so deeply <br>even the darkness is panicked <br>that it will be turned inside out <br>like an absolute certainty from an absolute doubt.<br>There's a blackhole in the heart of the light <br>that can't be eclipsed by insight<br>and the reality of you in your flesh and your fur <br>no longer sitting by us on the floor <br>listening in with your eyes closed<br>as if even when you were sleeping <br>your ears were always awake<br>is a wound so deep <br>a rip in the sky so irreparable <br>that nothing that pours out of it by way <br>of tears and stars <br>thoughts or feelings <br>though blood pour from our eyes <br>could ever be worthy of it. <br>Thank-you for the love <br>that always fell into our laps like you.<br>Like an unexpected reward<br>for just being us. <br>Thank-you for teaching us <br>how to love you unconditionally <br>and knowing like a quiet healer <br>just when to apply your presence <br>like a soothing herb<br>to the hurts and fevers that afflicted us.<br>Sad and alone in the dead zone of an unanswerable room <br>you'd rub your tiny skull <br>with its walnut sized brain <br>against my leg <br>and I'd realize <br>that it was you not me <br>with my three and a half pounds of neocortical starmud<br>for all the lightyears I've been searching<br>that had found the philosopher's stone <br>the moment you opened your eyes as a kitten <br>and you could work miraculous transformations <br>with the slightest touch of affection<br>or the nudge of a small wet nose. <br>When even God and Lucifer couldn't move me<br>if they were to try and change my mood <br>you could<br>as easily as Morgana la Fay moved Merlin <br>with her felicity for emotional alchemy. <br>So many times when all I thought I could do <br>to save the situation <br>was let go<br>you flowed like water around my legs. <br>Sometimes it takes a river <br>to remind the bridge <br>what it stands for <br>and keep its spirits up.<br>Sometimes the thread of life <br>passes through the eye of a needle<br>like light <br>in the form of a cat <br>and the rip in the sky <br>where all the stars were pouring out<br>is patched up<br>with a single act of seeing <br>when a cat looks at you a moment <br>and then closes its eyes in contentment <br>like the new moon in the old moon's arms. <br>You were Louise's child. <br>You followed her around like a third eye <br>that could see into the future <br>like the front door you sat beside for aeons like a sphinx <br>waiting for her to come home<br>with the blue bag of salmon-flavoured cat treats. <br>I never saw you as her shadow. <br>You were more <br>a mirror with a mind of your own <br>that could look deeply into her spirit <br>and see your own reflection. <br>You were her affable familiar. <br>Her talismanic charm <br>against the obscenity of human lovelessness.<br>Her emergency exit. <br>Her fire alarm. <br>You were the whiff of smoke that woke her up. <br>If she were the long hard art <br>of learning how to be mastered by love.<br>You were the discipline<br>waiting on the other side of the door <br>that made her trudge to the store in the snow<br>to be sure you got your treats.<br>And when she returned <br>you'd study everything going on in the room <br>as if you were looking at it all for the first time <br>but the more I looked at you looking at us <br>the more I realized <br>you weren't the student <br>you were a school <br>that compassionately exempted fools like us. <br>And now sweet one <br>what is it <br>that you want us to learn <br>from your perpetual absence? <br>As you once sweetened our lives <br>are you now trying <br>to sweeten death? <br>Are you trying to teach us how to see in the darkness? <br>To let go of our grief <br>as if that weren't the only thing we had left to hold on to? <br>The silence in the house is a lot lonelier <br>for the lack of your whisper <br>to confide in <br>like a secret you kept to yourself<br>when no one else was home. <br>The birds and the windows keep waiting <br>for you to jump up at them any moment now<br>but it's beginning to dawn on them you can't anymore <br>and it isn't just the rain <br>that's making the glass cry.<br>Who's going to stare at the plaster for hours <br>like Bodhidharma meditating in his cave<br>listening to the baby squirrels <br>learning to crawl through the walls<br>now that you're not sitting there <br>tense as an archer <br>and as attentive as a Zen master? <br>You had a C-spot under your neck<br>close to your jugular<br>that could make you purr <br>when anyone pampered it like Cleopatra.<br>Now who's going to know how <br>wherever you are<br>to make you stretch your claws out<br>like crescents of the moon<br>and make the green honey of your eyes <br>ripen into gold? <br>There's a darkness in the heart of grief <br>that burns like a black fire <br>all these tears can't seem to put out.<br>It's a measure of the love you inspired in us <br>that we'd rather let the pain of missing you <br>consume us in the flames <br>of remembering <br>some tender eccentricity of your cathood<br>even in the midst of trying to let life<br>get on with us without you <br>than ever let death make you a stranger to us. <br>You were Bast the Egyptian cat goddess among us in the flesh. <br>We learned to read your eyes like a Druidic Ogham <br>like phases of the moon as it waxed and waned.<br>One glance and I knew what you wanted. <br>You were a rose with retractable thorns <br>and we'd watch you for hours <br>wondering what you were dreaming <br>under your twitching eyelids. <br>And the tenderness that people are afraid <br>to expose to each other<br>because they haven't learned to walk through life skinless <br>we showed to you<br>without feeling that even the slightest gesture of it <br>was ever wasted<br>or unreturned<br>or that the spirit didn't recognize its own <br>whether it was embodied by a cat or a human.<br>Morgan<br>you're among the stars now <br>like a gust of light on the road of ghosts<br>like a hurricane that found rest in the eye of it own turbulence<br>like a cat-muse among these words <br>that can feel you watching them like birds <br>from your perch in the cosmic window<br>at the foot of the bed in Louise's room.<br>Morgan<br>though there's this black hole <br>your absence has left in the middle of everything <br>it's not an exit. <br>It's an entrance. <br>It's the way you taught us <br>how to diminish the darkness <br>by growing bigger eyes<br>to get the most light out of it<br>even when we think <br>as we do now <br>that there's nothing left<br>in this starless night <br>that could shine.<br>That the winds of time <br>have swept the last of the blossoms away <br>like phases of the moon<br>and even our tears <br>are the one-way tides<br>of the heart-numbing farewells <br>the whole of our lives seem.<br>Did we have the dream <br>or did the dream have us<br>or is it only the nightmares <br>that wake up screaming out in their sleep somewhere<br>where the pillows are wet <br>and the mothers come running <br>to reassure them <br>that what they thought they saw in the dark <br>was not real? <br>It was just another human<br>summoning some lost joy from the past<br>like the ghost of a watershed <br>that keeps recalling things <br>as if it were alone at night in a dark museum. <br>But an abyss isn't just an abyss.<br>It's also a fountain. <br>Everything reveals its emptiness <br>in the fullness of life <br>like the depth of the valley <br>is revealed by the height of the mountain. <br>The sweet brief life of the blossom <br>is the bright vacancy <br>rooted in the dark abundance <br>of the indelibility of the way we change. <br>To be here once <br>should be enough <br>to prove to anyone <br>that they've been here forever.<br>Life leaves signs <br>that anyone can follow back to themselves <br>like leaves on the mindstreams of their flowing.<br>They had to let go of the tree like maps <br>to know which way they're going. <br>It's the same with humans and cats. <br>Life breathes on the ashes of the starstreams <br>and everything starts glowing<br>like the eyes of a cat in the dark. <br>Morgan <br>it hurts not to see you <br>mesmerized by the turning water in the toilet-bowl<br>or sleeping in the bottom of the tub <br>or the end of my bed <br>or across the top of the easy chair <br>like a strategic adornment <br>keeping one ear open <br>to everything that was going on around you? <br>It hurts to wonder <br>what Louise is going to use for an alarm clock now <br>that you're not there<br>to lick her eyelids awake in the morning<br>and where are the candles <br>where are the plants <br>that could ever take your place in the windowsill<br>watching for her to come home<br>as if you were one of the streetlamps? <br>Sometimes it's hard to know<br>which hurts worse. <br>Never to have known love <br>or realize at times like this <br>how vast and excruciating the abyss is <br>how sad and foregone <br>the sad effusions of sorrow <br>the begrudging smiles of acceptance <br>that feel like the scars of an assassin<br>who doesn't know who to get even with<br>when even the least atom of something we've truly loved<br>like the cosmic beginning of everything <br>in large and small <br>in the petty and profound alike <br>in the mystical and the earthbound <br>in what is different and what is not <br>in the star and the candle and the phoenix and the firefly <br>in Louise and her cat<br>is extinguished.<br>Morgan yes <br>you've left a hole in the light<br>as big as the universe<br>and all the stars are pouring out of it <br>as if the light could cry<br>for the passing of your radiance <br>but Morgan <br>no more than the pupil of an eye<br>blocks the light from getting in<br>does the hurt of your death <br>qualify the dangerous rapture<br>of having loved you in this life <br>as well as we knew how to love anything. <br>Sweetness. <br>Gentleness. <br>We're all on the same journey <br>though sometimes we change bodies <br>like forms and shoes along the way<br>or walk barefoot awhile on stars<br>along the Road of Ghosts<br>talking to shoeless angels<br>about how mysterious it is <br>that every step of the way <br>where we come from <br>is where we're going<br>and it's not the destination <br>but the journey itself<br>that enshrines what is most sacred about life.<br>Not the arrival. <br>Not the fulfilment. <br>Not the completion. <br>Not the consummation that exhausts us wholly<br>and leaves us beseeching heaven<br>or pleading with emptiness <br>for a clarification of death<br>like the air we breathe out <br>leaves us longing for breath.<br>Our beginnings go on forever without end <br>and Morgan like you <br>if we wind up chasing our tails around <br>it's only because of the great delight we take<br>in knowing nothing's ever over<br>and everything is looping<br>like a snake with its tail in its mouth <br>or the horizontal eight of eternity <br>that keeps falling over <br>like a Bodhidarma doll<br>and righting itself like spectacles <br>worn by someone lying down<br>whose eyes go vertical<br>whenever they're dreaming. <br>It's not the farewell of the guest <br>but the welcome of the host <br>that we treasure most. <br>It's not the finding <br>but the seeking <br>that's the jewel of our quest.<br>That's why you stuck your nose into everything <br>and learned to see with your ears <br>and hear with your eyes<br>the wings of the stars and fireflies <br>that hovered just outside your window<br>when what was always wild about you <br>answered the Zen savagery of the night<br>like an austere summons to life. <br>Morgan you're gone <br>but there's no imperative <br>in why you had to go. <br>No harsh god. <br>No assassin cloaked in light. <br>No doors close<br>our senses and our hearts <br>to the earthly delights of loving you. <br>No gates open<br>like a cats' eyes <br>that will not see us return like insight <br>to the faces of the living creatures<br>we live to behold in our own features <br>and touch most gently</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br /></a><br />poem by <a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/by.php?a=Patrick+White">Patrick White</a><div class=q> <img src="https://www.citatepedia.ro/g/32share.png" style="float:left" alt="Share"> <script type="text/javascript" src="//s7.addthis.com/js/300/addthis_widget.js#pubid=citatepedia" async="async"></script><div style="display:inline-block" class="addthis_sharing_toolbox" data-url="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=476538" data-title="Dangerous To Love Things That Perish de Patrick White" data-description="for Louise and Morgan Dangerous to love things that perish but cowardly not to. You weren't just a cat. You were Morgan. You were as when I first saw you as a kitten cupped in Louise's hands a cloud a whiff of incense smoke a breath a gust o..."></div> </div> </div>

solid border dashed border dotted border double border groove border ridge border inset border outset border no border blue green red purple cyan gold silver black