A couplet my brain made

And somehow in the richest nations there’s still places where the kids are starving-poor
Yet in the barren wastelands some save their last water for the stranger at the door

I feel weird taking credit for this one.  It jumped into my head fully formed, more like remembering a song you’ve heard or a dream you just had than writing something.  But it expresses something important about the world.  I don’t usually write couplets, so that’s weird too, but it is what it is.

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R.I.P. Nikki

Nikki, a Siamese cat, looking watchful from a tree branch.

My best friend’s cat Nikki just died.  Nikki was an amazing cat, and very complicated and hard to sum up easily.  She was a lot like Fey in parts of her personality and body language, but Fey was a Gryffindor and Nikki was a Slytherin, for whatever reason.  She was, to my knowledge, 17, the same age as Fey when she died.

My favorite thing Anne ever wrote about her was Nikki the Guarding Cat.  There’s also Meet the Cats: Nikki.

She always lived her own way, and died her own way, fortunately peacefully while unconscious, despite it being bowel cancer.  She seemed to be in less and less pain towards the end, which is oddly how my father experienced his death from cancer.  (Not what you’d expect, but it happens.  He had no pain the last two weeks of his life, he said it just vanished and never came back.)

She was in many YouTube videos like these, with Brodie (who is Hufflepuff to the core):

He was the first of the younger cats (a trio of formerly feral littermates) to be able to approach her because his social skills are amazing and he gave her the respect she commanded.  (She always acted a little like royalty and expected to be treated as such.)

Brodie and Nikki touching foreheads with love and respect.

Brodie actually, while she was dying, mirrored her movements for 20 minutes one night, almost as if to show her that he’d be able to take over guard duty when she was gone and she didn’t have to worry about that.

All the other three cats (Coraline, Brodie, and Shadow) clustered around her and kept watch while she was dying.

Nikki on the couch she spent most of her time on while dying, with Brodie, Coraline, and Shadow all lying down nearby keeping an eye on her and keeping her company.

Anyway, the only poem I can offer in tribute to her is by Longfellow, “The Light of Stars”:

The night is come, but not too soon;

  And sinking silently,

All silently, the little moon

  Drops down behind the sky.

There is no light in earth or heaven

  But the cold light of stars;

And the first watch of night is given

  To the red planet Mars.

Is it the tender star of love?

  The star of love and dreams?

O no! from that blue tent above,

  A hero’s armor gleams.

And earnest thoughts within me rise,

  When I behold afar,

Suspended in the evening skies,

  The shield of that red star.

O star of strength! I see thee stand

  And smile upon my pain;

Thou beckonest with thy mailèd hand,

  And I am strong again.

Within my breast there is no light

  But the cold light of stars;

I give the first watch of the night

  To the red planet Mars.

The star of the unconquered will,

  He rises in my breast,

Serene, and resolute, and still,

  And calm, and self-possessed.

And thou, too, whosoe’er thou art,

  That readest this brief psalm,

As one by one thy hopes depart,

  Be resolute and calm.

O fear not in a world like this,

  And thou shalt know erelong,

Know how sublime a thing it is

  To suffer and be strong.

 

Nikki on the couch.

Nikki standing on a fence watchfully, underneath her there is a red “BEWARE OF DOG” Sign that has been altered with yellow paper to read “BEWARE OF CAT“.

I would indeed beware of Nikki.  A cat who can never be summed up no matter what you do.  May she rest in peace.

Thirsty

Child-Mel sitting on rocks by a mountain spring with a cup of lemonade & a goofy expression

I’ve learned to sustain myself
In tiny drops of water
From oases so small
They’re invisible
To the naked eye

You flow over jagged rocks
Like a mountain spring
That reminds me
I’ve forgotten how
To be thirsty