Cats

Cats have been a part of my life for as long as I can remember. Indeed my very earliest memories involve my interactions with members of the family Felis catus. My most recent memories do as well. Even as I sit at my desk, there are reminders. 

On the wall by my desk hangs this picture. This is Nicholas. Nicky. My late and much loved companion for many - but far too few - years. He's been gone now for more years than he lived, but he's still with me. As long as my heart beats he will be a part of it.

And this is Beau, seen here dozing on the windowsill in my office. It was a favorite spot of his. We lost him last year to cancer. I grieve still.

We got Beau and his sister Bella some months after Nicky's death. I wasn't sure I was ready for another cat when our younger daughter and her friend found them, abandoned, on a country road. They needed a home so how could I say no?

                                       

Here they are, snuggled together on my bed. Yes, there are actually two cats there!

They are a bit more defined here - Bella on the left, Beau on the right.

And now only Bella remains. Here she is, in her younger days, atop the bookcases in the library. It was her favorite spot back then. I think she just loved looking down on us. She's fifteen years old now and doesn't aspire to such heights anymore. These days she enjoys sleeping in the sun from that same window where her brother used to doze.

Before Beau and Bella, there were Oscar and Zelda - Oscar named for Oscar Wilde and Zelda for Zelda Fitzgerald. Wonderful animals!

These cats and so many others before (not to mention various dogs, birds, rabbits, chickens, fish, and even one rat!) have been an integral part of my life and have taught me to appreciate all the many ways that Nature has of expressing consciousness and that all those ways have value and things to teach us. Inasmuch as I have a philosophy of life, it is just that. It is not a bad guiding philosophy I think. And it is all thanks to Nicky and all those other cats and various animals.

Poetry Sunday: Let America Be America Again by Langston Hughes

This poem by Langston Hughes, the Black American writer, was first published almost a hundred years ago in 1935 but it seems as though it could have been written yesterday. Perhaps someday we will heed his words...

Let America Be America Again

by Langston Hughes

Let America be America again.
Let it be the dream it used to be.

Let it be the pioneer on the plain

Seeking a home where he himself is free.

 

(America never was America to me.)

 

Let America be the dream the dreamers dreamed—

Let it be that great strong land of love

Where never kings connive nor tyrants scheme

That any man be crushed by one above.

 

(It never was America to me.)

 

O, let my land be a land where Liberty

Is crowned with no false patriotic wreath,

But opportunity is real, and life is free,

Equality is in the air we breathe.

 

(There's never been equality for me,

Nor freedom in this "homeland of the free.")

 

Say, who are you that mumbles in the dark?

And who are you that draws your veil across the stars?

 

I am the poor white, fooled and pushed apart,

I am the Negro bearing slavery's scars.

I am the red man driven from the land,

I am the immigrant clutching the hope I seek—

And finding only the same old stupid plan

Of dog eat dog, of mighty crush the weak.

 

I am the young man, full of strength and hope,

Tangled in that ancient endless chain

Of profit, power, gain, of grab the land!

Of grab the gold! Of grab the ways of satisfying need!

Of work the men! Of take the pay!

Of owning everything for one's own greed!

 

I am the farmer, bondsman to the soil.

I am the worker sold to the machine.

I am the Negro, servant to you all.

I am the people, humble, hungry, mean—

Hungry yet today despite the dream.

Beaten yet today—O, Pioneers!

I am the man who never got ahead,

The poorest worker bartered through the years.

 

Yet I'm the one who dreamt our basic dream

In the Old World while still a serf of kings,

Who dreamt a dream so strong, so brave, so true,

That even yet its mighty daring sings

In every brick and stone, in every furrow turned

That's made America the land it has become.

O, I'm the man who sailed those early seas

In search of what I meant to be my home—

For I'm the one who left dark Ireland's shore,

And Poland's plain, and England's grassy lea,

And torn from Black Africa's strand I came

To build a "homeland of the free."

 

The free?

 

Who said the free?  Not me?

Surely not me?  The millions on relief today?

The millions shot down when we strike?

The millions who have nothing for our pay?

For all the dreams we've dreamed

And all the songs we've sung

And all the hopes we've held

And all the flags we've hung,

The millions who have nothing for our pay—

Except the dream that's almost dead today.

 

O, let America be America again—

The land that never has been yet—

And yet must be—the land where every man is free.

The land that's mine—the poor man's, Indian's, Negro's, ME—

Who made America,

Whose sweat and blood, whose faith and pain,

Whose hand at the foundry, whose plow in the rain,

Must bring back our mighty dream again.

 

Sure, call me any ugly name you choose—

The steel of freedom does not stain.

From those who live like leeches on the people's lives,

We must take back our land again,

America!

 

O, yes,

I say it plain,

America never was America to me,

And yet I swear this oath—

America will be!

 

Out of the rack and ruin of our gangster death,

The rape and rot of graft, and stealth, and lies,

We, the people, must redeem

The land, the mines, the plants, the rivers.

The mountains and the endless plain—

All, all the stretch of these great green states—

And make America again!